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The report went on to describe the arrival of backup, the delegation of duties in the search for Gradduk, and the medical condition of Padgett, whose nose turned out not to be broken, just bloodied. There was a mention of their encounter with me, followed by a concise description of the “accidental” death of Ed Gradduk, which was described as “unavoidable contact during pursuit of a fleeing homicide suspect.”

I’d finished the report before Joe, so I flipped through the pages again until he’d read the last page and set it aside.

“The detail is a little sparse for an incident report that resulted in a suspect’s death,” he said. “But other than that, it doesn’t seem especially unusual.”

“Other than the tip.”

“I don’t see anything particularly odd about the tip. If Padgett knew this guy Huggins from a previous robbery case and from working in the neighborhood, it’s not surprising that he’d get the call. If there’s one breed of businessman who appreciates his local street cops, it’s the liquor store owners.”

“I still don’t like it.”

Joe shrugged. “I’m not telling you to like it. Just saying it isn’t enough to base such a serious charge on, and wondering what you’ve got planned from here.”

“I want to talk to Huggins, and I want to talk to Alberta Gradduk.”

Joe nodded, looking not too subtly at our stack of active case files.

“If you’re worried about the paying clients, I’ll work it alone. Dock me for a couple vacation days.”

He rolled his eyes and stood up. “There’s nothing on our plate that can’t hold a day. And no limit to the trouble you’ll get into if I leave you to go at this alone.”

PART TWO

OUT OF THE ASHES

CHAPTER 11

We were at a stoplight on Lorain, on the way to the Liquor Locker, when Joe asked me to explain what had really happened with Ed all those years earlier. I was sure he’d wanted me to volunteer it myself, but the truth was, I kept forgetting he didn’t know. I had few secrets from Joe.

It didn’t take me long to explain it, and that felt wrong, somehow. It seemed as if it should take hours, not minutes.

“So you and his girlfriend were trying to bail him out of a situation he wouldn’t bail himself out of,” Joe said when I was through.

“Yes.”

He grunted but didn’t say anything else, just stared out the window and watched the houses and storefronts go by.

“I should have been up front about it back then,” I said. “But I hardly knew you, and . . . well, it wasn’t something that was easy to tell.”

“And you’re still feeling guilty about it.”

“About not telling you?”

“No. About what you did to your friend.”

“I betrayed him, Joe.”

“Only to try to help him.”

“No.”

He turned his head, but I didn’t look at him.

“It wasn’t about his girl,” I said. “I didn’t want to be with Allison. But I can’t pretend I went with her idea for purely noble purposes, either.”

“So what else was there?”

“I wanted to be the hero.”

He was quiet for a moment, then said, “I see.”

“I wanted to help him, sure,” I said. “But I also wanted everyone to know that I’d been the one. Allison, Draper, Ed’s mother, everybody. I wanted to be the savior.”

“That’s not what you became.”

I laughed sadly. “No. People called me a lot of things when it went down, but none of those terms were mentioned.”

Joe was silent till we were on Train Avenue, then spoke without taking his eyes off the road.

“What you just said, LP . . . that’s every young cop’s story. That’s what they all want, at first—to be a hero. I’ve seen enough of them to know that’s the truth. And I’ve been there myself. Young cops want to be heroes.”

“And old cops?”

“Just want to understand,” he said. “Just want to know the truth, and then disappear again. Fade to black.”

Directly across from the Liquor Locker was a charred concrete foundation that was all that remained of the home where Anita Sentalar had died. Or at least where her body had burned. Joe pulled his Taurus up to the curb across from the liquor store and we both eyed the burn site. Little was left. It had burned, as Amy had said, real hot and real fast. Most of the crime-scene tape that had been used to rope the area off had been knocked down now by curious neighbors or kids. My window was down, and as Joe turned the motor off, I could almost imagine that the acrid smell of stale ashes and smoke was still in the air. A lazy wind blew between the old houses on either side of the ruin, whistling softly as it passed over the jagged concrete formations that remained.

“Hell of a strange place to dump a body,” Joe said, “whether he had access or not. It’s a crowded city street. Setting the place on fire discreetly wouldn’t have been easy.”

“The good news is, Ed wasn’t looking for a place to dump a body, and he didn’t burn the house, so that’s not an issue.”

“Sure.”

We got out of the car and walked across the street and into the liquor store, a place that felt as spacious as an airplane bathroom. There were three shelves filled with cheap booze and two coolers along the far wall that held cold beer. I saw four bottles of champagne on the end of one shelf, the most expensive a twenty-dollar bottle of Asti. A black guy with a fleshy face and several chins sat at the cash register and watched us look around. He had a toothpick stuck in the corner of his mouth.

“You looking for something in particular?” “Had a couple questions for you,” Joe said, stepping up to the register, but I stayed where I was, scanning the walls. There, in the back corner of the room, was one camera. It pointed toward the front of the store, at the door. I pivoted slightly and found another, mounted where it had a good view of the cash register. Now that I’d located both of the interior cameras, I followed their angles with my eyes and found what I’d expected—neither looked out across the street. I left the building while Joe introduced himself to the cashier, then stood on the sidewalk until I found the third camera, a little one pressed up under the eaves, angled so its lens pointed across the street, directly at the charred concrete blocks that had once been part of a house. The camera was black and clean, the bolts holding it in place firm and without rust.

I went back inside. Joe gave me a curious look and stopped talking. The black guy worked the toothpick over to the other side of his mouth and glared at me.

“Are you Jerome Huggins?” I said.

He nodded. “I am. There a reason you so interested in my security cameras?”

“Yes. You’re the guy who provided the tapes of the fire to the police, right?”

It was hot in the cramped little store, and beads of sweat stood out on Jerome Huggins’s bald head and ran along his jowls. A tiny fan sat beside the register, blowing warm air into his face.

“That’s right,” he said. “And as I was just asking your friend here, what the hell does that have to do with you?”

“We’re private investigators,” Joe said, reaching for his wallet.

Huggins waved him off. “I don’t give a shit what kind of badge ya’ll got, I don’t think I want to be talking to you. If you’re private investigators, who you working for?”