Lincoln Perry 02 - Sorrow's Anthem (26 page)

It took us an hour to clear the building. We moved in silence
through dark, musty corridors that I’d once walked through daily,
past the classrooms where I’d devoted more time to studying girls
than books and a principal’s office that Ed and I had known better
than our homerooms. We’d had fun, though, and at the end of the
day I don’t think we were the type of students that drove teachers
to drink. Drove them to a bottle of Tylenol, maybe, but nothing
stronger.
Even knowing that the building had been closed for years, the
sight of the disrepair stunned me. Debris littered the halls, mice
scattered at the sound of our footsteps, and dank puddles from
countless leaks spotted the empty rooms. Looters had moved in
once the building had been closed, tearing free everything of
value. Most of the light fixtures were gone, faucets torn from the
sinks, ceiling panels removed so people could get at the copper
wiring.
In a room on the second floor, in what had once been the English
department, we found the remains of several candles beside a
filthy blanket, a broken bottle of Southern Comfort, and a few
empty Campbell’s soup cans not far away. A dented metal wastebasket
had been pulled up close by, and old ashes were inside. Joe
ran the light around it and shook his head.
“Very old,” he said. “Some homeless guy sneaking in to get out
of the snow, I bet.”
That was the closest we came, though. We didn’t speak at all on
the third floor, just moved through the rooms in total silence, Joe
scanning the floors with his flashlight, me standing behind him
with my gun out.
Neither one of us felt much like attempting to climb back out of
the basement window we’d used to enter. It was too narrow and too
high. All of the double doors had been fastened from the outside
with chains and padlocks, but the single doors had been locked only
from the inside. We found one leading out of the back of the auditorium,
unlocked it, and stepped back outside into the overcast day.
“Damn,” Joe said as I locked the door behind me and let it swing
closed again. “I thought we might have some luck with that.”
“It was a good idea,” I said. “As good as any other we’ve had with
this guy, at least.”
We walked out of the schoolyard and back to the street. Overhead,
the clouds were roiling. Looking up at them was like looking
down on an angry sea. The rain was light, though. Cold, teasing
drops. Thunderclaps that were louder and closer.
“Been holding off all day,” I said, looking at the sky.
“Humidity building, though. Bound to cut loose soon.”
“We need to get a cab.”
“What, you’re not up for the walk? Can’t be more than a hundred
and thirty blocks.”
“The rain’s coming,” I said. “Otherwise, I’d be right there with
you. Good exercise.”
“We’ll take the rapid.”
There was a Rapid Transit station maybe fifteen blocks away.
We walked west down Storer Avenue, then south to the station,
took the blue-line train back down Lorain. There was another station
at Fairview Hospital, just down the street from the office.
We were upstairs and Joe had his key in the door when the office
phone began to ring. He unlocked the door and got to the phone
quickly, spoke in low tones for just a few seconds, and hung up.
“Richards,” he said.
“He finally got the message?”
“Didn’t say anything about that. Just told me he wants to see us
immediately. Says your boys from last night are with him.”
“Mason and Dean?”

“Yeah. They’re in Berea.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t say. Just told me to get to Berea City Hall.”
“City Hall?” Berea was a small, middle-class suburb just southwest
of us, home to Baldwin-Wallace College. I wondered what
had brought a Cleveland homicide detective and members of the
corruption task force together there.
“Uh-huh. He didn’t explain it other than to suggest we haul ass
down there. He didn’t sound particularly happy with us.”
“Pissed off that I didn’t call him after the fires, probably.”
“Could be.”
I’d turned to go back out the door when I saw Joe had taken the
snub-nosed Smith & Wesson he favors out of his desk drawer and
slipped it into a shoulder holster. While I watched, he pulled a light
jacket on over that. The rain was beginning again, pattering
against the window.
“Planning to shoot a cop today?” I said. Joe always avoids wearing
a weapon when he can, so to see him putting one on before we
went to meet with police was damn strange.
“I’ve been put in the backseat of a van by an asshole with a gun
in his hand once too often today. That kind of got under my skin.”
He led the way out of the office and shut the lights off behind
us. The stairwell was filled with an eerie green glow. When we
opened the door and stepped out into the parking lot, the air
seemed to hum with the building storm’s energy, greenish clouds
skimming across the gray ones as raindrops splattered against us.
Joe moved to his Taurus, but I took my truck keys out of my
pocket.
“I’ll drive.”
“No, thanks,” he said. It was a control thing, for both of us.
Anytime we were heading into unknown circumstances, we both
wanted as much control of the situation as possible. Driving didn’t
give a whole lot of that, but it was better than nothing. Joe slid behind
the wheel of his Taurus without allowing a chance for further
debate.
He drove out of the parking lot and across Rocky River, hung a
right on Lorain, heading west. Instead of following Lorain as it
headed over the bridge, though, he slipped off onto Old Lorain
Road, a two-lane offshoot that wound down into the park, past
Fairview Hospital. It was the same route we ran together several
nights each week. This road would tie into the Valley Parkway
down in the river basin, and we could take that all the way into
Berea. The speed limit was reduced, but there weren’t the stoplights
or traffic delays you’d get on the main roads. The rain was
falling harder, and Joe clicked the wiper setting up a few notches,
the blades sweeping rapidly across the windshield. The soft patter
of raindrops abruptly turned to a harsh clatter.
“Hail,” Joe said. “Great. Probably put dents all over the car.”
His voice was almost drowned out by the pounding of the rain
and hail on the car. Rivulets of water rushed alongside the road. A
roll of thunder began with a slow rumble and built into a harsh,
clattering crescendo, like sheet metal passed through the gears of a
powerful machine. A strobelike flash of lightning followed, and
for a moment the tree-lined road was bright. I saw that the leaves
on some of the trees had rolled upside down, the way they will
when responding to the energy of a severe storm. Then the thunder
and lightning faded and the world grew darker again. This
time, the darkness was heavier, though. The clouds were shifting
again, the green glow gone in favor of blackness.
“Hell of a storm,” Joe said. “Car behind us doesn’t even have its
lights on yet.”
Joe’s headlights had turned on automatically, the sensor telling
them it was night even though it was midday. We wound down a
series of S-curves that would eventually straighten out and point
us at the river. Behind the trees outside Joe’s window was one of
the MetroParks golf courses, brief glimpses of bright green fairways
showing when the lightning flashed.
“What the hell,” Joe said, twisting around to look behind us as
he eased the car around one of the steep curves. The car that had
been running without headlights had suddenly swung into the opposite
lane, just off our rear bumper. Now the driver hit the accelerator
hard, and the car, a black sedan, pulled close.
“Shit,” Joe said, then he pressed down on his own accelerator
while I reached behind me and freed my gun from its holster.
The sedan had the head start, and the Taurus was no race car.
Before we made it out of the last curve, the sedan pulled up beside
us, and a clatter of automatic gunfire rang out. The sound was
deafening, even over the rain and the hail. Glass and metal exploded
around us as bullets tore through the car. I got the Glock
up but didn’t fire, because Joe slammed on the brake and if I’d
managed to hit anyone, it would probably have been him.
The pavement was soaked, and we’d been accelerating just before
he hit the brake. The Taurus was a sure-footed car, low and
wide, but even it couldn’t take that sudden adjustment. We fishtailed
as we shot out of the curve and toward the straightaway that
led to the bridge, the back end of the car whipping first one way,
then the next, as the black sedan slid ahead of us. The driver tried
to spin the car around and block us, but he soon discovered, as we
had, that these weren’t good conditions for fast maneuvering. Before
the sedan could get sideways, it skidded across the wet pavement,
popped over the curb, and plowed into one of the supports
at the front of the bridge. The hood crumpled and the windshield
ruptured and spiderwebbed, but that was the last I saw of it, because
we were spinning off the road ourselves.
Joe’s abrupt braking had put us out of control, but he’d also done
it just early enough to keep us from sliding into the bridge, as the
sedan had. Instead, we slid onto the steep embankment on the opposite
side of the road. Joe’s foot was still on the brake, but it didn’t
matter now—any end to our slide was up to physics, not the car.
We scraped down the embankment at a dramatic angle, and I
was sure the car was going to overbalance and roll. Outside my
window I could see only grass. Below us was a shallow pool
formed by excess river water. Before we went into it, though, we
thumped against the slender trunk of the one young tree that
stood on the hill. It bowed but didn’t break, holding us perched
halfway up the hill.
“You okay?” I said, turning to Joe. I saw then for the first time
that he’d been shot.
He was slumped back against his seat, his head at an angle, his
face a mask of pain. Blood was running down his jacket, spotting
his tie underneath.
“Joe!” I unfastened his seat belt and leaned across the console,
trying to see how badly he was hurt. Blood seemed to be coming
from his left shoulder and his chest. It was flowing quickly from
the chest wound, and his eyes were distant, his face white.
“We’ve got to get out of the car, Joe. They’re going to come
down here and kill us if we don’t.”
His answer was a ragged, shallow gasp. His head rolled sideways.
“Shit!” I took off my own seat belt and twisted in the seat, keeping
my gun in my right hand. Leaning across Joe, I peered out of
his shattered window, up at the road. I saw nothing but a glistening curtain of rain. They’d be on their way, though. I couldn’t imagine
that the crash would have killed the car’s occupants, and if they
could move, they’d come down here to make sure their task was
complete.
I lunged over the center console and into the backseat. There
were bullet holes through the door, and the back windows were
broken. This entire side of the car had been riddled with gunfire.
Joe’s demand to be in the driver’s seat when we’d left the office was
the only reason I hadn’t taken the shots instead of him. I didn’t
waste time trying to open the door, but just rolled onto my back
and kicked at the remnants of the window, knocking the jagged
glass away. Then I braced my hands—one still wrapped around the
butt of the Glock—against the seat and pushed my legs through
the window. A piece of glass raked across my ass, but then I had
my feet on the ground and twisted my torso out of the car.
For a moment I paused, leaning against the side of the car and
looking up at the road. I could see the wrecked sedan now, crumpled
against the far side of the bridge, and I heard a bang. Someone
closing a door, or kicking one open. I spun and grabbed the
handle of Joe’s door. It had been shot up, but it was intact and
should open. When I tugged, though, it stuck. I reached through
the broken window, ready to try to pull him out of it, but then I
saw the lock was down. I pulled it up and tried the door again.
This time it opened.
The door immediately began to swing shut because of the angle
we were on, but I got my hip in front of it. Then I slid the Glock
back into its holster and put both arms around Joe. He groaned
when I lifted him, but I couldn’t take the time to worry about being
gentle.

Lurching backward, I got his upper body out of the car. His
knees hit the edge of the steering wheel and stuck, though. He
shifted, kicking weakly against the seat, and then he was free,
falling out of the car and onto the hill. I set him down as gently as
possible, then let the door swing shut. There was more noise from
the wreck on the bridge, and when I looked up, I saw a man moving
through the rain.

I got my gun back in my right hand, then wrapped my left arm
around Joe. He wasn’t heavy, maybe 170 at best, and I could drag
him easy enough with one arm. His blood ran over my biceps as I
pulled him, and he let out a gasp of agony. Slipping and stumbling
down the muddy decline, I pushed us into the trees. As soon as I’d
heard the door open up on the bridge, I’d known there was no
point in attempting to use the car as shelter, or in trying to find a
secure position around the trees. The guys on the road had automatic
weapons. If they were in good enough condition to climb
out of the car, they’d be in good enough condition to sit at the top
of the hill and strafe us until there was nothing left for them to
worry about.
We had to get into the river.

CHAPTER
26

The rain was still pouring down, turning Joe’s blood from crimson
to pink as it flowed over my arm and slid down his jacket. His heels
plowed furrows through the mud as I pulled him toward the river.
Behind us, a burst of gunfire opened up, shredding the Taurus.
The sound was tremendous, so loud I wanted to drop Joe and cover
my ears. There was nothing discreet about this hit; the men on the
hill cared about nothing other than the efficiency of their murder
attempt.
The muddy bank was slippery, and the river shallow close to it,
maybe three feet deep at best. The only deep water here would be
in the pool out in the center, where the current was strongest, but
any attempt to hide in the river was going to be suicide. They’d
stand at the top of the bridge and fire down on us. Our best
chance—only chance—was to use the bridge against them, get directly
beneath it and force them to come down to the bank to have
a shot at us.
I lowered Joe onto the bank, dropped to one knee, and turned to
face the bridge. Then I fired six shots as quickly as I could get them
off, shooting up at the car. I couldn’t see the gunmen, so I had little
hope of hitting them, but I wanted them to hesitate as long as
possible before crossing to the other side of the bridge where
they’d have a clear shot at us. We needed every precious second if
we were going to stay alive.
As soon as I got the shots off, I dropped to the ground beside
Joe, pressing my cheek against the mud. It was a good decision.
Hardly had I gotten prone before another burst of automatic gunfire,
long and sustained, tore through the trees above us, blasting
bark loose and shredding the leaves. When it was done, I counted
off five seconds of silence before I sat up again. I put the Glock
back in the holster but didn’t fasten it, then turned and lifted Joe in
both arms. His face was ashen, but he grimaced and hissed between
clenched teeth when I lifted him. It was as good a sign as I
could hope for. You have to be alive to feel agony.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “But I don’t know another way to do
this.”
That said, I used my heels to push us both off the bank and into
the river. It was a clumsy way to enter the water, but we needed to
stay low. I moved in a sort of backward shuffle, crablike, holding
Joe with one arm and using my heels and free hand to push down
the river bottom, staying in the shallow end close to the bank. I’d
gone only ten feet when I sank into a pool, the water rising dramatically
without warning, and Joe floated free from my grasp. I
tried to kick my way back to the surface, but by the time I made it,
he was several feet away, out in the deeper water, and sinking. I
floundered toward him, going with the current, my soaked clothing
and shoes dragging me down. My hand found his jacket. I
heaved him upward and rolled onto my back, using my legs to kick
against the soft bottom, and one arm to pull. I rolled Joe so he was
on his back, too, his mouth and nose clear, and then I concentrated
only on keeping him above water as I struggled for the bridge.
The torrential rain had the river rushing faster than normal, but
it was still wide and sluggish here, the current lazy, and that meant
it took a hell of a lot of effort just to get us under the bridge. We
passed under the shadow of it just as gunfire riddled the trees
where we’d been before. Joe wasn’t even attempting to kick or use
his arms. He simply floated along, kept above water only by my efforts.
That troubled me, and not just because his dead weight was
making my struggle more difficult. Faced with disaster, instinct
forces you to respond. You fight to stay alive, to the absolute limits
of your physical ability. Joe’s complete lack of effort told me he was
close to dead.
Gunfire again. This time I could hear only the reports, no
sounds of impact. That meant they were shooting into the water.
I’d pulled us back to the same side as we’d started from, and now I
regretted that. When they realized we’d gone under the bridge,
they’d make their way down the bank, and this side offered an easier
approach. The opposite bank was much steeper, lined with trees
and heavy underbrush, and coming down it would be difficult. After
a moment of hesitation, I decided I had to try to get us across
while they were still up on the bridge.
I pushed my heels hard off the river bottom and sent us back
into the current, using my free arm in long, sweeping strokes.
Halfway across, the water deepened so that I could no longer
touch the bottom, and the strength of the current took me by surprise.
What had seemed like such a sluggish water flow had some
real power, and with Joe limiting my mobility, I was having trouble
fighting it. If we got swept out from under the bridge and into the
open on the other side, the decision to move for the other bank
would become fatal.
I sucked in a breath of wet air and swept harder with my right arm, the muscles in my shoulder screaming, pulling us back against
the current and toward the other bank with everything I had. Several
weeks without much rain were all that saved us. Had the water
been deeper, I wouldn’t have been able to pull us across before the
current swept us into the open, but because it was shallow, I was
able to cross the deep part of the pool and find footing on the bottom
again. Once I could plant my feet, we were fine. I slogged us
through the shallows until we reached the other side of the bridge,
leaned against the cold stone, and gasped for breath.
Above us all was silent. I wrapped my left hand in Joe’s shirt and
tugged him through the water, edging out a bit so I could get a
look up at the bridge.
I saw them through the steady, shimmering rain—two men in
black jackets, ski masks over their heads, weapons in their hands.
They’d come down from the bridge and were standing behind the
wrecked Taurus, searching the nearby trees. The only thing keeping
us alive right now was the storm. It was always dimmer down
here in the bottom of the valley, and with the heavy black clouds,
it was especially dark. They couldn’t stand on the bridge and see
the tree-lined banks well enough, so they’d been forced to come
down to shoot accurately, and they’d started with the side where
we’d wrecked, as I’d expected. Once they cleared that bank,
though, they’d be coming this way.
Colored lights danced across the dark water around us. I rolled
to my left slightly, and for a moment Joe’s face dipped beneath the
water. That was enough to let me see the source of the lights,
though. A Crown Victoria with an overhead light bar had pulled
off the Valley Parkway and crossed the bridge, heading toward the
wrecked cars. I got a glimpse of the side of the car as it passed and
saw the MetroParks Ranger logo on the door. MetroParks rangers
weren’t naturalists or park security—they were cops. They went
through the state academy just like the city police, worked assaults
and drug cases and the occasional murder like any other cops, but
their jurisdiction was limited to the thousands of acres of parks in
the system. He’d have a gun, and a radio.