to be spending it in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which does in fact pay my salary.”
He sighed again. “And, you’re right, the trail is cold. Twelve years cold, and the people who left it, well, they’re a different sort from you and me. A handful of people who knew them suggested that Joshua might have been suicidal, that he’d been depressed and secretive toward the end. You know what else those people had to say? That if Cantrell actually committed suicide it’s possible his wife would have just buried his body, lit a few candles, and marched on. A different sort, yes, they were. Ah, but the family ties? Oh, the family ties, boys, they are
He turned his wide eyes to Ken. “Dominic Sanabria called you.”
“Yes.”
Graham’s head swiveled toward me. “And he
“Yes.”
“Keeps careful tabs, doesn’t he?” Graham’s eyes were on his notebook again, and he was frowning, as if he were reading right through the leather cover and didn’t like what he read.
“Harrison sent you a check after you told him to get lost,” he said. “That’s really something. Why give up the money to a guy who said he didn’t want it?”
“He was real worked up about giving me a retainer.”
“Or maybe his motivations lay elsewhere. Like keeping open that door of communication that he’d been knocking at over several months.” He leaned back. “What do you think, Linc? Could we open that door back up?”
“I was pretty happy to extract myself from this situation,” I said. “Not as happy to plunge back into it. What’s your idea? I’m supposed to play a game with this guy?”
“I love a good game, Linc. That is one hell of an idea. I’m really not sure yet. I’ll need a few days to think on it. But I might ask you to play, yes.”
I frowned. “Look, Graham, I understand the importance of what you’re doing here, but if you expect me to contribute, then I’d like to know more about the situation. You still haven’t said why you’re so interested in Harrison.”
“He lived with the victim at the time of the victim’s disappearance.”
“That’s it?”
He didn’t answer.
“Because I don’t think that’s enough. In fact, from what I’ve seen, there are plenty of other people worth your time and attention. Like the parolee who had a history of association with Sanabria, went to live with the Cantrells, and died soon after he left.”
He nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, Bertoli’s part of it, sure.”
“Or her brother, shit, that guy—”
“Oh, yes, him, too.” Still nodding.
“Seems to me there’s more potential in those two areas than with Parker Harrison.”
He stopped nodding, made a pained face, and then said, “No, I’m afraid I can’t join you there. I was with you right up till the end, though.”
“Why? What do you see in Harrison that makes him stand out from the pack?”
“I have my reasons.”
“I’m going to need to have them, too, Graham, if you want my cooperation.”
He was studying my face, and he kept his eyes hard on mine when he finally spoke again. “Only one of those parolees you mention ever had any direct contact with Dominic Sanabria,” he said. “That was Parker Harrison. He made half a dozen phone calls to Sanabria in the same week the Cantrells left their home.”
“Looking for information, maybe. Trying to track them down, just like he is now.”
“Perhaps. Then there was a twelve-year gap between calls, which ended not long ago, when Harrison made two more calls to Sanabria. That was in December, Linc. Same time Harrison contacted you.”
“Following up with him, seeing if he’d heard the news,” I said.
“Most interesting thing about the timing of those two calls? Harrison made them a day after the body was discovered.”
“So?”
Graham smiled, his teeth brilliantly white against his dark skin. “Took a while to identify the corpse, Linc. Harrison didn’t call after the ID. He called after the body was found. A body that, at the time, was an unidentified pile of bones in another state.”
I didn’t respond to that.
“Let me ask you something,” Graham said. “When you talked to Harrison, he say anything about being part Shawnee? Talk about his, uh, culture?”
“Yes.”
“Not surprised to hear that,” he said. “The folks at Harrison’s prison told me he did a lot of reading on the subject. A lot of study.”
“That has some significance to you?”
He nodded but didn’t speak.
“Well?”
Silence.
“Graham, I’m going to say this again: If you want me to cooperate in whatever game you cook up for Harrison, I’ll need to know everything that you do.”
“If it leaks,” he said, “it jeopardizes an already weak investigation. That cold trail we keep talking about, it’s not making this thing easy.”
“It’s not going to leak,” I said. “Not from this room.”
He looked at Ken, waited for the nod of agreement.
“We held one detail back from the report on the discovery of Cantrell’s body,” Graham said. “A detail of potential value.”
“What is it?” I said.
“Joshua Cantrell was buried in a grave that was about four feet deep, lined with bark, and laid carefully in an exact east-to-west fashion. Then poles were placed over his body, more bark laid over the poles, and dirt piled on top.” He looked at Ken, then back at me. “Those are all elements of a traditional Shawnee burial.”
12
__________
Something you learn early as a detective—your work is damn dependent on physical evidence and people who know things relevant to the crime. Have either of those, and you’re going to get somewhere. Have neither? Not going far, at least not easily. Quinn Graham had spent six months determining he had none of the former and only suspicions of the latter.
Whatever physical evidence might have existed at Joshua Cantrell’s grave at the time he went into it was gone by the time the body was discovered. The evidence techs worked it as thoroughly as they could and came back with nothing. The poles, bark, and arrangement of the grave were physical evidence, yes, but didn’t link back to a killer.
“Except in circumstantial fashion,” Graham told us, “and you both know that’s not worth a shit in court. It’s worth something to me, though. That grave and those phone calls to Sanabria, they’re worth something to me.”
Their worth, it seemed, had been a load of frustration. He’d attempted to talk to Dominic Sanabria and immediately been met by a team of attorneys. Then he’d shifted his focus to Harrison and found the same response.
“Harrison lawyered up?” I said, the surprise clear in my voice.
Graham swiveled his big head to me and nodded. “He’s not confirming so much as his own name without his
