It was quiet, and I let it stay that way. One of the reasons I didn’t speak, truth be told, was that I could feel a sort of electric tingle, and I wanted to hold on to it for a moment. It came not from his story, which was intriguing but could also be total bullshit, but from the way he told it. The light in his eyes, the energy that came from him when he spoke, had an almost rapturous quality. There was a depth of caring in what he said that I hadn’t seen often before. The depth of caring you could probably develop if you spent more than a decade in a cell and then were released to the place he’d just described.
“I’m sure there’s a simple explanation,” I said. “One you could probably find with a little computer research. Maybe they overextended when they built that house, and the bank foreclosed. Maybe they moved to be closer to family. Maybe they decided to go overseas.”
“You think I haven’t done computer research?” he said. “You think that’s a new idea to me? I’ve researched, Lincoln.”
“You didn’t find anything?”
“Nothing. I turned up some addresses for people with the same name, wrote some letters, never got a response unless the letter bounced back to me.”
“Not all of them did? Then you probably got through to them and they didn’t care to respond. No offense, Harrison, but correspondence with a murderer isn’t high on most people’s list of priorities. I can see why they’d ignore your letters. I tried to do the same.”
He spoke with infinite patience. “Alexandra would never have ignored my letters. She was a better person than that.”
“People change.”
“I have six thousand dollars,” he began again.
I waved him off. “I know, Harrison. You’ve told me.”
He looked at me sadly, then spoke with his eyes on the floor.
“I need to know what happened. If it takes every dime I have, I won’t feel that it was wasted. What I told you in my letters came from the heart. I see you as a storyteller. You take something that’s hidden from the world, and you bring it forward, give us answers to our questions, give us an ending. It’s what you do, and you seem to be very good at it. I’m asking you, please, to do that for me. Give me those answers, give me the ending.”
I didn’t say anything. He shifted in his chair, looking uneasy for the first time, and I had an idea of how badly he wanted me to take this job.
“You just want to know where they went?” I said. “Is that it?”
He nodded. “I’d like to speak with her.”
“I won’t facilitate contact for you. I believe there is a very good chance that one of your letters got through, and they did not wish to hear from you. If that’s the case, I’m not going to pass along any messages or give you their new address. I’ll simply tell you what I can about why they left.”
“The address is important to me, though, because I want to send a letter. I have some things I need to say.”
I shook my head. “I’m not doing that. The most I will do is tell them where you are and say that you’d like to be in touch. If they want to hear from you, they can instigate it.”
He paused with another objection on his lips, then let it die, and nodded instead.
“Fine. If you find her, she will be in touch. I’m sure of that.”
“You said you weren’t close with her husband,” I said. “Perhaps you should consider the possibility that he didn’t think highly of you, and that he’s one of the reasons you haven’t heard from her.”
“He’s not the reason.”
“We’ll see.”
It went quiet again, both of us realizing that the back-and-forth was through, that I had actually agreed to do this. I’m not sure who was more surprised. Harrison shifted in his chair and began to speak of the six thousand again, to ask me what retainer fee I would require.
“None, Harrison. Not yet. I expect this won’t be hard. What seems altogether mysterious probably won’t be once I dig into it. Now, you gave me their names, but is there any chance you remember the address of that house?”
“It’s 3730, Highway 606. Just outside of Hinckley.”
Hinckley was less than an hour south of Cleveland. I took a notepad out of the desk drawer, then had him repeat the address.
“There’s a stone post at the end of the drive that says Whisper Ridge,” he said. “That’s the name Alexandra gave to the place, and it was a good choice. Appropriate. It’s the quietest place I’ve ever been. Alexandra said one of the contractors told her it was built in an acoustic shadow. Do you know what that is?”
I shook my head.
“I’d never heard the phrase, either, but apparently in the right terrain you can have a situation where the wind currents keep sounds from traveling the way they should. I have no idea if that’s true of Whisper Ridge, but I can tell you that it’s an unnaturally quiet place.”
“The house will give me the start,” I said, not interested in hearing another spiel about the property. “I’ll be able to tell when they sold it and whether there was a foreclosure involved. Sudden departure like that, one could be likely.”
He shook his head. “That’s not going to be your start.”
“No?”
“Well, the house will,” he said. “The house absolutely should be. I’d like you to see the place before you do anything else, but there won’t be any details in a sale that will help you.”
“You say that with confidence.”
“That’s because they never sold it.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yes.”
“Then who lives there?”
“No one.”
I cocked my head and studied him. “Positive about that?”
“I’m positive. I’ve had correspondence with the sheriff out there. The house is still owned by the Cantrells, the taxes are current, and according to him, it’s empty.”
“It’s been twelve years,” I said.
“Yes.”
“The house has just been sitting empty for that long?”
“That’s my understanding.”
“A house that is worth—”
“Several million, for the house and the property. I know you expect this to be easy, but I have a different sense than that. I think it will be anything but easy.”
3
__________
I left the office a few minutes after Harrison did. I stood on the corner waiting to cross Rocky River and walk over to Gene’s Place for some lunch, trying to enjoy the warm breeze and the sun and not dwell on the fact that I’d just agreed to work for a murderer. Not even an accused murderer, which was the sort of thing defense investigators did regularly, but an admitted murderer, a guy who’d sat across the desk from me and talked about the man he’d killed with a knife.
I’d had him on his feet, headed toward the door, and now I was working for him. So what had changed? Why, after ordering him to leave, had I agreed to his request? I could pretend part of it was the story, the intriguing question he’d presented, but I knew that wasn’t enough.
