The Silent Hour

buddy. Big stuff.”

“Yeah?” His interest was genuine.

“Yesterday we learned”—I threw in a pause, enjoying the impatience in his eye—“that Salvatore Bertoli was, in fact, placed in the Cantrell home by an FBI agent named John Dunbar.”

I said this with heavy drama, straight-faced, as if I really believed he’d be impressed.

“He was believed to be a witness to a killing committed by Dominic Sanabria,” I continued after another pause. “Joshua Cantrell was working with Dunbar to extract information from Bertoli. Evidently it did not work well.”

Graham stayed silent.

“Pretty big stuff, eh?” I said.

“Right,” he said, but the disgust was clear in his voice.

“What’s the matter, Graham? You thinking about those hours you wasted on the road?”

“You know all of this is old to me,” he said, “yet you made me drive up here.”

“I know it’s old to you, yes. It wasn’t old to us, and it’s something we wasted a day on, when you could have told us the same things in about fifteen minutes. So you want to worry about the time you spent driving up here, tough shit, man. You let us walk around like a couple of—”

“I didn’t want you walking anywhere, Perry. Don’t you get that? I don’t know how you found Dunbar, but I wish you hadn’t. If you’d have called—”

“I did call. Yesterday morning, after we got Dunbar’s name and were standing downtown feeling like hot shit. It’s embarrassing to admit now, but that’s the truth of it. You got a problem with us talking to Dunbar? Well, you could’ve prevented that easy enough.”

He sighed and leaned forward, then ran a hand along the side of his head and gripped the back of his own neck and squeezed as if he were trying to calm himself down.

“I know you were police, Linc,” he said, “but you gotta realize, you are not police anymore. So when you get all fired up over shit you weren’t told, slow down and think about the situation from my point of view, which is: I’m not telling anybody a damn thing that I don’t have to. Ever. I’m trying to maintain control of my investigation.”

It was exactly what I’d expected he’d say, but that didn’t mean it pleased me.

“Graham, you asked for our help. Sat right there in that chair and asked for—”

“No, no, no.” He looked up, shaking his head. “Didn’t ask for anybody’s help, Linc. What I asked for, and what I expected to receive, was your cooperation. Big difference, boy. You had access to Harrison, and that’s where I wanted your cooperation. What I did not want, at any time, was for you two to go running around the city interviewing people and knocking on doors and potentially damaging my case. I as good as told you that, too.”

“When?”

“I said that I was counting on you to keep him from stepping to trouble.” Graham jerked his head at Ken, and I saw a flush of anger—or embarrassment—cross Ken’s face. “Now I find out I should’ve been just as worried about you as him.”

He sighed again, shook his head again, and then leaned back and loosened his tie. “Here’s what I want out of you two, okay? Communication with Harrison. That’s it, and that’s all. I don’t want you to force the communication, either. I just want to be aware of it. Tape the talks when he initiates them, and that’s great. As far as street work goes, I don’t want you on this.”

“That’s not really your call,” Ken said.

Graham looked at him with wide, challenging eyes, his index finger still hooked in the knot of his tie. “It’s not? You get in the way of a police investigation, and don’t think I can shut you down? Boy, you don’t even have a client.”

“I do now,” Ken said.

“Who?”

“Parker Harrison. He retained me through Lincoln. I believe that scenario was your idea, too.”

Graham scowled and released his tie after one last angry jerk.

“Hang on a minute,” I said as he was getting ready to start in on Ken again. “We can all fight this one out later. Fact is, Ken’s got a client, and you gave it to him, Graham. Regardless, I don’t think Ken has any desire to hinder what you’ve done, or what you’re trying to do. If we don’t know what that is, though, we’re bound to cause you some headaches.”

“I told you my reasoning.”

“Yes, and I understand it, but what I’d like to hear you say is what you actually think of John Dunbar. I’m assuming you know he was retired at the time all this went down?”

Graham gave one last stare to Ken, not ready to let that battle fade so quickly, but then he returned his attention to me.

“Dunbar’s straight,” he said. “I know it doesn’t feel right, but he’s straight.”

“How can you say that with any confidence when there’s nobody around to support his story?”

“Nobody around to contradict it, either, but the fact is the man could not be more cooperative,” he said. “The day after we ID’d the body as Joshua Cantrell, I got a call from Dunbar, wanting to fill me in. He initiated the contact. I had no idea who he was at that point, or what his connection was, and I would’ve wasted a lot of hours developing that. Instead, he drove out to see me, brought boxes of shit out with him, photos and notes that he’d taken. Left it all with me, for my review. If the man’s got anything to hide, he’s got a strange manner of hiding it. He was calling me a couple times a week for a while, throwing theories and suggestions until I stopped calling him back because he was underfoot so damn much. Hell, it was him that pointed me to Sanabria’s phone records, showed he’d been in touch with Harrison.”

“Did you make any attempt to verify his version of events?”

“Of course I did, and the man checks out, Linc. You want to do the same, go ahead. He served thirty years in the FBI, thirty strong years, and if you can get anyone to say a bad word about him, it’ll be in the way things went with Bertoli.”

“Well, I’d imagine. You’ve got someone murdering an FBI informant that nobody in the FBI knew was an informant, yeah, that’s a problem.”

“Sure it is. Everyone involved acknowledged that, both at the time and when I got in touch this year. That doesn’t make Dunbar corrupt, though.”

“What about Mark Ruzity?” I said. “The guy seems to have some anger issues. Put a chisel to my forehead while telling us the case was better off unsolved. Then Dunbar showed us a photo of him with Sanabria just days after the Cantrells vanished. How do you explain that?”

“I can’t. You know who took that picture? Dunbar himself. He’d started following Sanabria after he realized Joshua was MIA. Yes, while he was retired. Yes, acting unofficially. I get your problem with that, Linc, I do, but I’m telling you the man is truly trying to help. Without him, we’d never know Ruzity and Sanabria had any association.”

“So now you know that they do, but you don’t know why.”

“Not yet.”

“Bertoli was openly connected to Sanabria’s circle before he went into prison,” I said. “Now we know that both Ruzity and Harrison had contact with him after they came out. What in the hell was going on in that house, Graham?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Yet you want our help, and you expect to get it without telling us a damn thing.”

Graham lifted his hands, palms out, and made a patting gesture. Soothing. Step back, relax, everybody be happy.

“Look, I understand your irritation, but what we need to make clear is that I can’t aff ord to have you guys in my way. What’ve you done here, it’s no big deal. Talking to Dunbar is nothing, but I can’t have you keep after it. Eventually you may talk to the wrong person, maybe before I do, and then we’ve got a real problem.”

“So you’re telling us to stop the investigation?” Ken said.

“No, I’m telling you not to harm the real investigation. The one that’ll get somebody arrested and convicted if it’s done right, and will let ’em walk if it’s done wrong. I’m here to see that it’s