Authors: Michael Koryta
"Not
much house, but I'd take the view," I said.
"No
kidding." Ken popped open his door, nodding at the Civic. "We're in
luck, too. Looks like somebody's home."
We
got out of the car and walked up a concrete path to the front door. There were
iron railings beside the two steps up to the door, and those, too, were shiny
with a fresh coat of black paint. I pulled open the storm door to knock, but
the someone was already at the door, swinging it open.
"Can
I help you—"
"Mr.
Dunbar—"
"That's
right." He was probably late sixties and seemed more like an engineer or a
math teacher than a retired cop. Neatly parted gray hair, slight build, three
mechanical pencils and one red pen tucked into the pocket of a starched white
shirt that he wore with black suit pants but no jacket or tie, so that it
looked like a waiter's uniform.
"My
name's Lincoln Perry. I'm a PI from Cleveland. Used to be with the department
out there."
"Am
I the target of your investigation or a potential source for it—" he said
dryly, a hint of humor showing in the eyes.
"With
any luck, a source."
"Come
on in."
We walked
inside, and I crossed through the cramped living room to stand at the back
window and look out at the lake while Ken introduced himself. Everything in the
house spoke of an exceeding level of care, but you could see the age in it,
too—old-fashioned doorknobs and hinges, a Formica countertop in the little
kitchen beside us.
"Hell
of a location," I said when Dunbar finished addressing Ken and they joined
me in the living room.
His
smile seemed bitter. "You have no idea how often I've heard
that
in
the past few years."
Sorry.
"No,
no. It is a great spot, but you've seen what's going up around it. Last fall
someone offered me three-quarters of a million for the property. You know what
my parents paid for it—"
"Fifty—"
He
smiled. "Thirty-eight. We lived in Cleveland, and my father wanted a place
on the lake for summer, and back then there was nothing out here."
"You
ever consider selling it—" Ken asked. "Money talks, is the
rumor."
"Money
screams in your ear. No, I haven't and I won't. I'm retired, I live simply, and
I cannot imagine being any happier than I am right here."
Retired,
and he was wearing a starched shirt and dress pants in his own home. Yes, the
more I saw of him, the more he reminded me of Joe.
"Besides,
I enjoy my legend in the neighborhood," he said. "Would you believe
that the garage next door is more than a thousand square feet bigger than my
entire house— The
garage."
He
laughed and turned away from the window, then went and sat on an overstuffed
blue armchair and waved at the matching couch across from it.
"All
right, if you're not here to buy the house, then what is it— One of you from
Cleveland and the other from Pennsylvania, this has to be interesting."
"I'm
basically riding shotgun on this one," I said. "It's Ken's case, but
I'm helping out with the Ohio end of it. We're trying to find out what happened
to a man named Joshua Cantrell. I don't know if that name means anything to
you."
Even
before I got that last part out, it was clear that the name meant plenty to
him. The easygoing look went tense and, maybe, a bit sad.
"Oh,
my," John Dunbar said. "That one."
"Yes,"
I said. "That one."
He
was quiet for a moment, looking at the coffee table. "When you say you
want to know what happened to him, you mean why was he killed. You mean, of
course, what transpired that led to the man's body being buried in the
woods."
"Yep,"
Ken said. "That's the gist."
"Well,
you came to the right place," Dunbar said, and when he looked up at us
there was no mistaking it this time—his face held sorrow. "I can tell you
who I believe murdered him, but I can't prove it. What I can prove, though, is
who
got
him killed. There is a difference. Would you like to know who
got
him killed"
Ken
shot me a quick glance, eyebrows raised, and nodded. "We sure would."
John
Dunbar lifted his hand and gave us a child's wave, all from the wrist.
"Right here," he said. "I got him killed, gentlemen. If you
don't mind, I might pour myself a drink before I tell you the story."
He
went into the kitchen and opened a cupboard and withdrew a bottle of Scotch
that was nearly full. We waited while he opened another cupboard and spent a
few seconds scanning the inside before selecting a juice glass. When he twisted
the cap off the bottle it made a cracking sound, breaking a seal that had
evidently enjoyed plenty of hardening time.
"Ken
Merriman," Dunbar said in a flat voice. "You're the one the Cantrells
hired."
Ken
raised his eyebrows. "How do you know that—"
"I
was trying to assist with the investigation. The police side. I knew everyone
who was involved, at every level. I never spoke with you because, frankly, I
wasn't interested in seeing a PI step into the case. Are you still working for
them—"
"No."
Dunbar
waited, but Ken didn't volunteer a client, so eventually he just nodded and sat
down. He took one sip of the whiskey.
"We
found you through a man named Mark Ruzity," I said. "He told us you'd
been sending police his way for years."
"That's
right."
"Why—"
"Because
he knows something that could help," Dunbar said, and then he set the
whiskey aside and got up and walked into another room, closing the door behind
him. He was gone for maybe five minutes before he came back out and dropped a
photograph in my lap.
Ken
moved so he could look over my shoulder, and we studied the picture. It showed
Dominic Sanabria and Mark Ruzity standing together on a sidewalk bordered by a
wrought-iron fence. They both looked much younger. Ruzity was saying something
to Sanabria, speaking directly into his ear. Whispering, perhaps. He had one
hand clasped on the back of Sanabria's neck, and Sanabria was leaning forward
and listening with intense eyes.
"They
knew one another—" Ken said. "How—"
"I'm
not certain," Dunbar said, "but you'll be interested in the date that
photograph was taken. It came a matter of days after the Cantrells
disappeared."
"Why
do you have it—" I asked. "What's your connection to their
case—"
"You
don't know my personal history with Dominic—" he said, sounding genuinely
surprised.
"John,
we really don't know much at all," I said. "We're not as far around
the curve as you think. More lucky than good, maybe."
"Oh,
I doubt that. Still, in the interest of having us all caught up, let me
explain. I assumed you read some articles about Dominic, the charges he always
managed to slide out from under. I had the bastard once.
Had him."
"How
so—" Ken said.
Another
drink of Scotch, little more than a sip. He hadn't offered us any, which wasn't
a problem but confirmed that he wasn't much of a drinker. This glass was for
him while he told his story, and it didn't even cross his mind that anybody
else would want a drink in the middle of the day
"There
was a motel out on the east side—a big old place with lots of separate
units—that Dominic and his team were using. The owner of the place was a
sleaze, and he knew they were dirty, but they paid well and tipped better, and
so he kept his eyes wide shut to everything they did. Well, I put some energy
into turning him, put some pressure on, and he agreed to cooperate with us. The
idea was that he'd be a pretty general snitch. I wasn't asking him to do
anything out of line, just tip us to comings and goings. I wanted to do some
wiretaps out there—the whole reason they were using the place for meetings was
to avoid wiretaps—but they were smart enough to get different units every time,
and the judge wouldn't sign off on a warrant for the whole damn place. Even if
he had, we couldn't have gotten that much equipment. It just wasn't practical.
"So
instead I'm using the guy as a source of information on movement, nothing more.
About a month after I turned him, I get a call from him. A page, actually—back
then we were still using pagers. I call him back, and the guy's frantic. Says
Sanabria and another guy had just checked into the motel, and that there were
blood splatters on Sanabria's shirt and that he looked all disheveled and out
of breath, like he'd just come out of a fight or something. They asked for a
unit all the way in the back of the place and then pulled the car up right
outside the door, and when they go in Sanabria carries a handgun in with him.
This is good news, because he's a convicted felon and not allowed to have a
handgun."
This
time, Dunbar took more than a sip of the Scotch.
"I
haul ass out to the motel. When I get there, the owner tells me somebody else
showed up at the room and then drove away, but the car Sanabria and the other
guy came in originally is still parked out front. So I go down there, with the
owner, and bang on the door, and this guy named Johnny DiPietro answers.
Remember that name. He's the guy that checked into the motel with Sanabria. I
badge him and tell him I've got the owner there. I stand there in the door, and
I say to the owner—this is your property, and I have consent to search. Right—
He says yes. All this, DiPietro hears. So then I turn back to him, and I say,
okay, you heard that, now are you going to make trouble— He shakes his head and
steps aside, and then I say to him, I
repeat it carefully,
I say—do I
have your permission to search the room, then— He tells me that I do, he tells
me this in front of the hotel owner, who has also given consent, and, you know,
it's
his
property anyhow."
Dunbar
paused again. There was a flush building in his face.
"I
search the room and find a gun and a shirt that's soaking in the shower, has
blood on it. DiPietro is panicking now, but Sanabria is gone. He left with the
other guy. We arrested him eventually, first for the handgun charge, and then
later we got his fingerprints off the gun and a ballistic match to the homicide
of a kid named Lamarca, who had just been shot that day. After that, we even
got a blood match—Lamarca's blood was on Sanabria's shirt. We had that
confirmed by the lab. Ballistic and blood evidence tying Sanabria to a
homicide, and if nothing else we've got him on the gun charge."
He
paused then, and it was quiet for a moment before Ken said, "So how the
hell did he walk—"
I
answered for Dunbar.
"DiPietro
didn't rent the motel room."
Dunbar
raised his eyebrows, then gave a short nod and lifted his glass to me.
"Well done, Detective."
"You
had ballistic and blood matches that you got through a good-faith search,
though," Ken said, incredulous.
"He
wasn't a cop," I told Dunbar. "Doesn't know the lovely law of the
exclusionary rule."
"Fruit
of the poisonous tree," Dunbar said, nodding. "Sanabria, piece of
shit that he is, is legally entitled to privacy in a motel room that he rented.
If he wants to leave a homicide weapon and a bloody shirt in that room, he's
allowed to do that in private. It's his reasonable expectation. Fourth
Amendment right."
Ken
looked shocked. "You had consent from an occupant and the
property
owner."
"I
know," Dunbar said. "I thought that would be enough. I really did. I
knew there was a chance the owner might not be able to grant consent to a
rented room without a warrant—honestly, I wasn't sure about that, which I
probably shouldn't admit, but then I'm not a lawyer. That's why I used him to
bait DiPietro into opening up, though, because I figured DiPietro had to
believe it was the owner's right. What I didn't count on was DiPietro being a
visitor and not the registered guest. It was Sanabria's room, legally. That
means nobody else could give consent."