“Mister,” he said, “I hope you’re an honest man. Because I believe I just killed a police officer.”
CHAPTER 27
The hospital room was cool and dark. I sat on the tile floor with my back against the door. I’d been here for a while now. At least ten minutes had passed since I’d told the cops I needed to go to the bathroom, when all I’d really needed was to get away from them, from the lights, from the world. I’d needed to close my eyes. It was a small thing, closing your eyes. But I needed it badly.
I’d made a few random turns through corridors that smelled of pungent cleansers until I found an empty room. Joe was in the building, somewhere. I couldn’t see him, though. He was still in surgery. Eight hours of it now.
I wondered how long they could keep him in surgery. At what point did they just give up? Eight hours seemed like a lot of it. I wondered who the surgeon was, how steady his hands were, how much experience he had with gunshot wounds. I wondered if Joe was already dead.
If I’d gotten him killed.
I slid my heels back so my knees were raised, crossed my arms over my knees, and rested my forehead on my arms. Kept my eyes closed. He hadn’t wanted to get involved. Not even at the beginning. I’d gone out to his house in the middle of the night, sat in his living room, and pressured him into helping me. He’d hesitated, and not because he was worried about his own safety, or about lost money on the paying cases, or about the media attention surrounding Ed’s death. He’d hesitated because he knew that I was on a fool’s mission. Because in the end, what could I accomplish? I could alter a dead friend’s legacy. But was that enough? The answer wasn’t as resounding in my mind tonight as it had been all week.
Eight hours Joe had been on the table. They would have parts of him opened up, blood running down his skin, tubes inserted into his nose, wires fastened to his flesh, computers monitoring his life, if indeed he still had life.
Ed Gradduk was my demon, not Joe’s. If anyone was going to be hurt trying to help a dead man, it needed to be me.
Voices in the hall. Someone inquiring about me. A nurse saying she hadn’t seen me. I kept the door shut until I heard the man thanking the nurse, and then his voice registered. It was Cal Richards. I’d seen nothing but cops for hours now, but not Richards. I’d been wondering when he’d show up.
I slid sideways far enough to clear myself from the door, then reached up for the handle and pulled the door open.
“Richards.”
He was halfway down the hall when I spoke, and at the sound of his name he turned and looked one way, then the other, seeing nothing. I stuck my hand into the hall and waved it at him. He saw me and walked down to my room. When he stepped inside, he turned on the lights. I winced against the harsh brightness, and he flicked them back off. He closed the door softly. A chair was at the foot of the empty bed. He slid it across the floor and sat down.
“You okay?” he said.
I looked at him, but in the dark room I saw nothing of his face, just an outline.
“He’s still in surgery,” I said.
“Yeah.” I couldn’t see his mouth move when he talked, and his voice seemed to float out of the blackness, soft and strong. “I’ve asked about him. First thing I did when I got here, in fact, was talk to the doctors.”
“And?”
“It’s a bad one. Two gunshot wounds.”
“I know that, Richards. I was there. What else, though? Nobody around here will give me details.”
“I’m not a doctor, Perry. I can’t tell you what’s happening in there.”
I leaned my head back against the wall and shut my eyes again. “What can you tell me, Richards?”
“I can tell you that Jack Padgett’s not dead yet, but he’s also in no condition to talk. I can tell you that the car he drove was stolen, and I can tell you that we don’t know who the second shooter was.”
“Have you found Corbett?”
“No.”
I shook my head. “That son of a bitch matters. Corbett’s the guy who makes everything go, Richards.”
“You seem a lot more convinced of that than you were two days ago.”
“He matters to everybody,” I said. “Living and dead. Mattered to Sentalar, Ed, Rabold. To Padgett and Cancerno. You’ve got to find him, Richards.”
“We’re going to.” He shifted in his seat and I saw his silhouette lean forward. “But first you’ve got to tell me what you did that made it all escalate so damn fast, Perry. What you did that made a cop decide it was worth the risk to try and take you out. You have to have an idea about that.”
“I’ve got one.”
“I need to hear it.”
“Okay,” I said. “It starts with Mike Gajovich.”
Richards let his breath out in a long, low exhalation. “Yeah.”
“You’re already there, huh?”
“Started that way this morning,” he said.
“In Berea?”
“Uh-huh. While I was looking into Sentalar, I learned she wasn’t the first choice for director of the Neighborhood Alliance. A Berea city councilman was. He took the job, then backed out. Seems Mike Gajovich was pretty heavily involved in the whole project. Seems this guy from Berea was guaranteed a job on Mike’s staff when he became mayor. Guaranteed the job if he’d look the other way on some funding issues with Cancerno’s contracting company and the Neighborhood Alliance. Guy had long ties to Gajovich, and I’m sure he’s a crooked bastard, but he was wise enough not to like that setup and he backed out. The way things are shaping up, it looks like Cancerno’s kicking back a lot of the cash from that organization to Gajovich, funding his campaign, most likely.”
I wanted to care. I wanted to ask for the details, try to tie it all back to the puzzle pieces I’d spent a week assembling, make it fit, make it neat. I couldn’t, though. I couldn’t find it in me to give a damn about any of it anymore. Not with Joe stretched out on some cold steel table, scalpels and forceps being used on his body.
“You gonna tell me how you got to Gajovich?” Richards said.
“His brother’s going to be involved, too,” I said instead of answering his question. “Dean and Mason are probably already on it. His brother’s the commander of District Two. Rabold and Padgett’s boss.”
“That did come up,” Richards said.
“Have you brought Cancerno in yet?”
“Looking for him. Missing in action, for now.”
“Him and Corbett,” I said. “Wonderful.”
“I’m going to need you to tell me what you know in some detail. But not now.”
I was already shaking my head. “You’re right, not now. I’m done talking to cops for the night, Richards. I’m done until someone lets me see Joe.”
He was quiet for a minute. “I wanted to come earlier. Soon as I heard. But with all this shit going down, the prosecutor involved now, I spent the whole afternoon meeting with the brass.”
“It’s fine.”
He looked up. “I’m just trying to tell you,” he said, “that it matters to me, too.”
I nodded. “All right, Cal. I understand.”
Twenty minutes later, Richards was gone, off to consult with his superiors yet again. I didn’t envy his job. The department would already be sweating the damage control of Padgett’s shooting by the MetroParks ranger. Adding it to a day in which they’d learned one of their own commanders and the county prosecutor were likely tied to major corruption had probably sent them into cardiac arrest.
Let them see it through, I thought. Let them deal with Cancerno, and find Corbett, and fire Gajovich or impeach him or whatever the hell it was you did with a prosecutor. It didn’t matter anymore. Ed Gradduk was dead, and my partner was headed that way.