Michael Koryta - The Prophet

“Great.” Adam took a deep breath. “He was a piece of shit. A predator. But I deal with the same kind of people all the time. I’m not putting a gun to all of their heads. I wanted him because of what he’d done. Only he never did it. So what I’m left with…” He ran a hand over his face, falling silent.

“We will keep you clean,” Kent said.

“Clean?” Adam looked up. “A bit late for that, Franchise.”

“I mean with the police. We can’t change what you did, no. We can change who knows about it, and what happens because of it. We can still control that much.”

“I don’t even know if I want to,” Adam said. “But regardless, I’ll take care of myself. Chelsea probably said you needed to help me. I’ve decided I don’t want that, though. Stay away from the wreckage, Kent. I’ll take care of—”

“If we can find him, we can keep you out of prison,” Kent said.

Adam stared at him. “Find who?”

“I know who it is, Adam. This time I really know. I spent the whole night with the FBI.”

“Tell me,” Adam said, and then he listened as his brother explained the whole thing, the sociopath who’d impersonated a minister, who’d walked in and out of the prisons in which he belonged and sought recruits. Found one. Clayton Sipes.

Adam lit a cigarette but couldn’t smoke it. The inhalations were too hard, so he set it back in the ashtray and let it burn itself out.

“They believe Grissom killed Sipes,” Kent said. “Right now, there’s not even a doubt in their minds. You’re not a suspect.”

“It’ll change fast. Bova was already suspicious, and if he starts talking, and at some point he will, they’ll get to me. When they realize I knew about the house where Sipes was staying, they’ll begin to press. Then it’s a matter of whether I can hold up against the pressure.”

“How long did you follow him before… before you killed him?”

“Bova?”

“Sipes.”

“I never followed him. I found him and I killed him.”

Kent frowned. “Sipes was staying in Cleveland.”

Adam shook his head.

“No,” Kent said. “I’m not wrong on this. They told me they got to Grissom through evidence found in an apartment in Cleveland. That’s where Sipes was living.”

Adam looked at him for a long time. Said, “He was in Cleveland?”

“Yes.”

“He had to have a place to operate here. Did they not mention that yet?”

“No. It’s not a long drive, Adam. He probably just—”

“How did they find the place in Cleveland?”

“I have no idea.”

“Find out.”

“Adam, why does it matter?”

“Find out.”

Kent called his contact with the FBI, got an immediate answer, and Adam listened to one side of the conversation. Kent played it well. Surprisingly well. Led with questions about Grissom, about the security plans for his family, said that no, he had not heard from Grissom, but, yes, he did have one question. How did they know where Sipes was staying? From his end, Adam couldn’t hear the answers, but he could get a sense that it had something to do with a phone. He hadn’t searched Sipes, not for a phone or a wallet, not for anything. Why would he have? There had been nothing left to hunt once Sipes was facedown in the rocks.

“Who did he call?” Adam asked when Kent hung up.

“Dan Grissom, for one. The same number I have for him, the one he only uses for messages. And his landlord. Promising money for rent. I guess they’d been threatening eviction. Maybe that’s why he came to Rodney Bova. Looking for cash?”

“That would be consistent,” Adam said, and his voice sounded distant even to his own ears. “So he was staying in Cleveland?”

“Yes.”

Adam got to his feet. Kent said, “Where are you going?” but he didn’t answer. He went outside, unlocked the Jeep, and found his camera. Came back inside, turned on the display and clicked backward through his recent photographs, then passed the camera to Kent.

“Is that him?”

It was a picture of the man who’d left the house at 57 Erie Avenue just before Adam began to drive away and spotted Sipes in the window. Sipes had been looking out at the street, and Adam had thought at the time he might be keeping an eye on things, checking his safety. Maybe not, though. Maybe he’d been watching his messiah depart.

Kent was staring at the display window of the camera.

“Is it him?” Adam repeated.

“Yes.” Kent’s voice was barely audible. He moved back through a few pictures, then went forward again, to the close-up of the man who’d left the house. “That’s Dan Grissom. When did you take a picture of him?”

“Thursday morning.”

Kent looked up. “Just before…”

“Yeah.”

“Where was he?”

“With Sipes. It’s the place where Sipes was staying.”

“Not in Cleveland.”

“No. So if he had a place in Cleveland, and Grissom is missing, then…”

Neither of them said anything for a minute. Kent was staring at the camera, and Adam thought that he was trying to place the house. Kent would not know that house, though. Kent would not know the street. They’d been on it a few times, when they were kids, when the steel mill was still alive and their father worked there. But in the years since, Adam doubted that Kent had ever had occasion to drive back through. He’d coached some fine players from the neighborhood—Erie Avenue was home to hitters, the kind Kent liked—but he would not recognize the houses. It was not his world.

“Do you know whether Sipes was staying there alone?”

“I don’t. Bova went there in the middle of the night. I was at your house, so I didn’t want to leave. I waited until morning and then I went to check the address out. This guy came out and drove away, and Sipes stayed behind. I got him then.”

The phrase made Kent grimace, but he said, “This has to be where he is. Sipes would have come to him, not the other way around.”

“You think?”

Kent nodded. “Control is big to Grissom, according to the FBI. It’s critical.”

“I wonder if he’s gone now. If I scared him off by killing Sipes.”

“Yeah,” Kent said. “I wonder.” He finally set the camera down, and now his attention was on Adam and his face was thoughtful. “Can I have that gun back?”

“Why?”

“Same reason I wanted it before. In case I need protection.”

“Bullshit, Franchise. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Kent was silent. Adam spread his hands. “Come on, Kent.”

“I’m thinking,” his brother said, his brother who was on the front page of today’s paper with his arms upraised, signaling victory, “that if Grissom is dead, he takes the Sipes case with him. They’re already assuming he’s responsible for that. If he’s around, they’ll have to investigate it hard, because he won’t admit to doing it. He may know damn well that you did it.”

Adam shook his head. “Stop.”

“I can do it,” Kent said. “I’m the right one to do it. In so many ways.”

“Stop talking like me,” Adam said. He’d never meant anything more.

“He’s taking pictures of my family, Adam. Last night I got home and found photographs of a murdered girl beside photographs of my daughter.”

Thirty minutes earlier, Adam had thought his ability to feel righteous fury had been extinguished, probably for good. He’d been sure of it. But it rose now like a rogue wave.

“Fuck it,” he said. “I’ll take him down. I went this far to do it, I might as well finish.”

Kent was shaking his head. “Let me.”

“Hell, no. Kent, look at what you’ve got to lose. Look at what I’ve got—it’s already lost.”