Lincoln Perry 02 - Sorrow's Anthem (13 page)

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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
older, 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

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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 be here
until next weekend.”
“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?”
“No. But she came by one day last week and spent an afternoon
with the kids. She was very sweet. They all loved her. She was supposed
to come back today. That’s why I had to tell them.”
“Why was she here?”
“Well, actually, Mitch brought her by. The kids love Mitch. He’s
always around. That’s why you scared me so much when you asked
about him. I couldn’t bear to have to tell them something had happened
to Mitch, too.”
In the pauses of our conversation, I could actually hear the
squeak of crayons and pencils on paper. It was that quiet.
“Do you know why Anita Sentalar was with Mitch Corbett?” I
said. “Were they a romantic couple?”
She shook her head. “I’m fairly certain they weren’t. He said he
was showing her the neighborhood.”
“Showing her the neighborhood,” I echoed.
“Staaaacey.” A long whisper, this from the girl with the brown
braids.
Stacey started back around the table and motioned for me to
follow. The girl with the braids asked if she could go to the bathroom.
Her face was flushed and streaked with dried tears. Stacey
told her she could go. When the girl left, we stood at the edge of
the table where she’d been seated. I looked down at her picture.
This one was perhaps the most disturbing yet. It showed a tall
house with almost a dozen windows, carefully drawn, gleaming
with bright colors. At the top of the house, though, a ragged black
hole had been drawn in the roof, orange flames around it.

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I frowned and pointed at it. “You told the kids how Anita Sentalar
died?”
Stacey shook her head. “No. I thought it was a bit too scary for
them. I’ll leave details like that up to the parents. I just said she
was dead, and that we should all be grateful we got to spend a day
with her.”
“Then how’d this girl know to draw a fire?”
“Like I said before, Lily has had a family crisis this week. They
were all set to move into a new house by the end of the month. She
was so excited. Then their house burned down.”
“It wasn’t the house on Train Avenue?”
“No. It was right here on Clark. Just a block down the street, actually.
But it was one of Anita’s houses.”
“Pardon?”
Stacey held up a finger, indicating that she wanted me to wait,
then walked across the room to a rack on the wall that held a collection
of papers and brochures. Enrollment forms for various rec
center leagues and activities, that sort of thing. She selected a
brochure, crossed the room again, and handed it to me.
The front page of the trifold brochure showed two pictures of
the same house. The photograph on top was of a crumbling building
with faded paint and broken windows. The lower photograph
showed a shining home, fresh paint, new glass, completely restored.
THE
NEIGHBORHOOD
ALLIANCE
it read.
RESTORING
PRIDE
TO
THE
WEST
SIDE
.
“There’s a picture of her on the inside,” she said.
I opened the brochure and saw a few more before-and-after pictures
of houses, and a small block of text explaining that the
Neighborhood Alliance was a Cleveland community effort to improve
housing options on the near west side with the aid of federal
funding. Run-down houses were being restored and then sold to
low-income buyers with the assistance of federally insured mortgages.
There was no picture of a woman, though.
Stacey was leaning over my shoulder. “Maybe it’s on the back.”
I closed the brochure and turned it over and stared at a small
headshot of Anita Sentalar. The picture was familiar—it was the
same shot that had been on the front page of the newspaper the
day Sentalar’s body was pulled from the ruins of the house on
Train Avenue. Beneath the photograph was a caption labeling her
the director of the Neighborhood Alliance.
“This is why Corbett was showing her the neighborhood,” I
said. “Because she was involved with the urban renewal project?”
“Yes.”
“And Corbett’s working on the houses,” I said, remembering the
Neighborhood Alliance sign outside the house where I’d found Jeff
Franklin.
“Is he?”
“Yes.” I was still staring at Sentalar’s picture, thinking about her in
this building with Mitch Corbett just a few days before she’d died.
“The fire on Clark Avenue burned one of this group’s houses
down?” I said.
“That’s right. Lily’s family was working out the purchase details.
They’ve never had a house before, always small apartments, and
there are four kids. They were so excited. It broke my heart to hear
what happened, but Anita promised them she would make
arrangements for them to buy another house. That’s why Lily was
extra-sad to hear Anita was dead. I’m afraid she thinks her family’s
house died with her.”
The girl came back then, still long-faced, and pulled to a stop in
front of us.
“Who’s this?” she asked Stacey, pointing at me.
“He’s Mitch’s friend,” Stacey answered.
The girl swiveled her head to face me. “Our friend died,” she said.
I knelt next to the table, bringing myself down to her level. “I’m
very sorry to hear that. I know how sad that must make you. One
of my friends just died, too. It’s tough.”
“How’d he die?” she asked, a child’s blunt curiosity getting the