The Silent Hour (5 page)

    "I
want to see it," she said.

    "Bring
some waders, that creek provides the best way in."

    "Your
psychopath didn't mention that— He didn't even know there was a gate—"

    "My
client
did not, no."

    "Hey,
you work for a murderer, you better get used to the criticism and name-calling.
Anyway, maybe that means the gate is new."

    "Probably."

    "I
wonder who put it up."

    "So
do I. I'm going to change clothes and drive back down there and check with the
auditor, see who has been paying the taxes."

    "You're
going back today—"

    "Uh-huh."

    "Lot
of driving for one day."

    It
was, and with any other case I might have delayed the return trip. This was
different, somehow. There was something about the place that had gotten under
my skin after just one visit, and I wanted to know who was responsible for it,
who'd kept it away from a sheriff's sale but still didn't bother to actually
take care of the home.

    "I'm
not busy," I said. "Faster I get this worked out, the faster I can
terminate my relationship with Harrison."

    'Two
hours later, wearing fresh pants and shoes, I stood in the recorder's office
and stared at a warranty deed confirming that, yes, Alexandra and Joshua
Cantrell owned the home. There was no mortgage. They'd paid five hundred
thousand for the property alone seventeen years earlier. It was a
forty-eight-acre parcel.

    So
Harrison's information was accurate and up-to-date and the Cantrells still
owned the home. Now came the second step, the auditor's office, where I'll find
a new address for the couple.

    Well,
it was supposed to go that way. When I took the parcel number over lo the
auditor's office and requested the records, though, I learned that the tuxes
had been paid each year—in full and on time—by one Anthony Child, attorney at
law, Hinckley, Ohio. Okay, maybe I was going to need a third step lo finish
this one off.

    Child's
office was on the second floor of a brick building on the square in Hinckley,
which is a town known nationally for Buzzard Day, a bizarre ritual in which
people gather each April to welcome a returning flock of turkey vultures. In
some places, this return would be cause for alarm, or at least mild revulsion.
In Ohio, it's a celebration. Hey, we have long, tedious winters, all right— You
take your excitement where you can get it.

    Attorney
Child was in, and willing to see me. The entire firm seemed to consist of an
angry-looking secretary in an outer room and Child alone in the office behind
that. The door to the tiny attached bathroom stood open, showing a toilet with
the seat up. First class. For a good thirty seconds after I'd been shown into
his office he kept his back to me, staring at the TV. Weather report. Can't
miss that.

    "Hot,"
he said when he finally clicked the television off and turned to me.
"Unusually hot for the first week of May."

    "I
know it."

    "Going
to be a rough summer. You can always tell."

    Everyone
else was rejoicing that winter had finally broken, and this guy was bitching
about the summer to come. Cheerful. He sat and stared at me without much
interest. Maybe fifty years old, small face with slack jowls and sleepy eyes.
His tie was loosened, and his jacket was off.

    "I
was just explaining to your secretary that I found you through a tax
record," I said. "I'm curious about some property, and when I pulled
the records I found your office handled the payments."

    That
was all it took to wake the sleepy eyes up. They narrowed and focused, and he
pushed away from the desk and ran both thumbs down the straps of his
suspenders.

    "What
exactly is your line of work, Mr. Perry—"

    I
took out a business card and passed it across the desk to him. He looked at it
long enough to read every word three times and then read them backward. Finally
he set the card carefully on the desk and kept one hand on it while he looked
back up at me.

    "This
is about the Cantrell house."

    I
nodded.

    "Who
are you working for—"

    Here
I hesitated, for the obvious reason. Parker Harrison's name hadn't meant
anything to me until he'd taken to writing letters, but Child was a good deal
older and more likely to remember a murderer from that era than I was.

    "Someone
who's interested in the property," I said after a beat of silence.
"It's a damn expensive home to leave in that condition."

    "I
take it you've trespassed out there and seen the place— Don't worry, I'm not
going to report you. Plenty of people have trespassed there before. It's a damn
headache, that house is, and for as little money as I've made off the
arrangements, I wish I'd never agreed to it."

    He
was warming up to me now, waving his hand around while he talked, looking more
relaxed.

    "You
put up the gate," I said.

    He
nodded.

    "At
the Cantrells' request—"

    A
hesitation, as if I'd asked something odd, and then, "No, not exactly. I'd
been out to the house a few times and saw that there'd been some vandalism. 'I
he sheriff called me to complain, because they'd had to go out there on several
occasions and break up groups of drunk kids wandering the grounds. Word got out
that the place was empty, and the kids immediately found their way to it. You
know how that goes. Then there was a hitchhiker who found it and moved right
in, had some insane idea about claiming squatter's rights. Sheriff was
irritated, so I went ahead and put up the gate and the fence. It's
helped."

    "You
paid for this—"

    "I
draw from an account she left. The money was there." He pulled himself
back to the desk again, frowning, and said, "Mr. Perry, you clearly don't
want to tell me who you're working for and why they want to find her, but I
need to tell you this: Any number of people do want to find her, from the
police to reporters to people like you, and I can't help. All I ask of you is
to make that clear lo your client. I don't know how to get in touch with her; I
don't know where *he is or what she's doing."

    "Mr.
Child, I don't understand exactly why she'd be so sought after. Who is the
woman, anyhow—"

    He
looked at me as if I'd asked him how to spell my own name. Then his eyes turned
reflective and he nodded. "Your client's interested in the property."

    "That's
right." It wasn't true, really, but I had the sense that was what he
wanted to hear as some kind of reassurance.

    "So
you have no idea… shit, you guys really are clueless. Okay. That puts me at
peace. It truly does."

    "What
don't I understand, Mr. Child—"

    "Anything,"
he said. "You don't understand anything. What
do
you know about
Alexandra and Joshua Cantrell—"

    I
shook my head. "Only that their names are on the deed."

    "Okay,"
he said. "Then you absolutely don't understand a damn thing. Now I'm going
to tell you two little details, and then I'm going to ask one more time who
you're working for, and if you won't answer, I'll tell you to get the hell out
of my office."

    He
braced his elbows on the desk and folded his hands together. "You've done
amazingly poor research, Mr. Perry. Here are the two details you need to know:
First, Joshua Cantrell is dead. Nobody had heard from him in twelve years, but
last winter his bones were found near Pymatuning Reservoir. Buried in the
woods. Case still under investigation."

    He
paused, and I was aware of how quiet it was in his office, so quiet that I
could hear the dripping of a faucet in the little bathroom on the other side of
the wall, a drop falling into the sink every few seconds.
Plip, plip, plip.

    "Detail
number two," he said. "Do you know the lovely Mrs. Cantrell's maiden
name—"

    "I
do not."

    "Sanabria,"
he said. "Alexandra Sanabria."

    "Shit,"
I said. "You're kidding."

    He
shook his head.

    "Maiden
name," I said. "Surely she's too old to be the daughter of—"

    "Dominic—
Yes, too old to be his daughter. Just the right age to be his sister. Sister of
Dominic, daughter of Christopher, right there in the trunk of a very infamous
family tree. Pride and joy of Crime Town, USA."

    It
was an old nickname, went back almost fifty years, but people still attached it
to Youngstown, a gritty factory town an hour from Cleveland. While the Italian
mob's heyday in Cleveland was during the sixties and seventies, Youngstown
remained an epicenter for decades longer, featuring constant FBI attention as
well as the occasional car bombing or sniper takedown of a major player. During
one attempt to pay off the town's mayor, a
priest
was involved as a
money handler. Ties run deep in Youngstown, and a lot of them run through the
Sanabria family. Christopher was the patriarch, the focus of a major federal
investigation when he was killed in the late seventies. Twenty years later, his
son, Dominic, appeared in headlines for a few months during the Lenny Strollo
and James Traficant trials. Something like seventy convictions were handed down
in the fallout of those investigations—Traficant was a U.S. representative at
the time, which only added to the circus—but Dominic Sanabria walked away with
one of the lightest sentences, two years for minor crimes. It wasn't that he'd
been a minor player, but he apparently left less evidence and trusted fewer
people. At the time, one of the district attorneys suggested that Sanabria was
the most dangerous of the lot, and the media made good use of that quote.
People in the Cleveland area remembered the name.

    "That
house," I said, "is owned by Dominic Sanabria's sister— That's what
you're telling me—"

    Child's
face turned unpleasant as he leaned across the desk, almost pulling out of his
chair, and said, "Yes. Now, damn it, I need to know who you're working
for."

    "That
information is confidential, Mr. Child. I'm sorry."

    "Then
get out. And tell your client to give up his inquiries on that house."

    "Where
is she—" I said as he got to his feet and walked to the door.
"Where's Alexandra—"

    I
didn't ask because I believed he would provide an answer but simply because I
wanted to gauge his reaction for myself, see if I smelled a lie.

    He
paused with his hand on the doorknob and turned back to me. "Nobody knows.
Not me, not her family, and certainly not the police. If they did know, maybe
they'd stop calling me all the time."

    It
felt like the truth.

    He
twisted the knob and swung the door open for me. "Goodbye, Mr.
Perry."

    Outside,
the air was thick with humidity, and a bank of angry dark clouds had gathered
in the west. It was a heavy, cloaking warmth, and I opened the second button of
my shirt and stood on the sidewalk and stared at the sleepy town square.

    Joshua
Cantrell is dead… bones found last winter… buried in the woods. Case still
under investigation.

    Without
leaving the front steps of Child's office, I took out my cell phone and called
Amy at the newspaper. For once, she was there. I asked her to do an archives
search for Joshua Cantrell.

    "The
guy who owns the house—"

    "Owned.
He's dead."

    "Lincoln—"

    "Run
the search, please. I'd like to know when they found the body."

    I
listened as she clicked keys and people in her office laughed over something.
It took a few minutes, and neither of us spoke. Then she found the right
article.

    "Looks
like a hunter found the body on the first weekend of December."

    "That's
just before Harrison wrote me the first letter. He knew. The son of a bitch
knew."