Playing God (28 page)

He passed it to Burgess, put the other videos away, and got up, dusting the dirt and lint off his knees. "Kevin O'Leary?"

"I'm not wearing gloves," Burgess said. "Can't get 'em on without help. If I ever find that guy with the pipe..." He passed the bag back. "Looks like O'Leary. But here's a twist. He came in a big, black car that waited for him. She wasn't too clear, but it sounds like he wasn't driving. We'd better talk to those kids, see what they noticed."

"What about the videos?"

Burgess shrugged wearily. Decisions. Decisions. Would this day never end? He was sick of the sensory stimulus, the voices, faces, stories, the lies and evasions. Tired of twisted fucks who liked to rape children. Soon as this case was over, he was becoming a hermit. "We can save those for later. Get pizza. Sit around and drool."

From the other room, a voice called, "Hello? Hello? Is anybody here?"

They found a small, round Asian man staring sadly at the mess on the floor. "I am the owner," he said, shaking his head in dismay. "I am Sam Sun. What has happened here? The policeman wasn't very clear. Is Mai all right?"

"She's gone to the hospital."

Sam Sun looked at them, and then he sighed. "She is so young and yet she is determined to work. Not like some, for the money to buy things, but to help out her family. Mai is a good girl." He stared at the bag in Kyle's hands. "You are cleaning up? There is no need. I will attend to it. First, I must go to the hospital and see about Mai. She will be frightened. Do you need me for anything before?"

"Yes. The man who attacked Mai was looking for tapes he said you were keeping for him."

Sun's opaque expression was defeated by agitated blinking. "How odd," he said. "We rent tapes to people. We do not store them."

Kyle hefted the bag and dumped the tapes out on the counter. "These videotapes were hidden in the back room. Do you mind if we take them?"

Mr. Sun bowed slightly. "Of course not, if you think they will help. May I see?"

Kyle, who still wore gloves, held out a tape. "Please don't touch it," he said.

Sun looked at the label. "These are not mine. I don't know. I don't know how they came to be here. Now please, if I may, I would like to lock up?"

They explained that a crime scene team needed to take photographs and fingerprints, but that if nothing was disturbed, it could be done when Mr. Sun was finished at the hospital. Burgess gave him the name and number to contact and a receipt for the bag and videotapes.

"Looks like Attorney McFarland will have to wait," Burgess said. "You want to call Vince, tell him what we've got?"

"Maybe Stan can go see McFarland. He might charm the woman. Unlike us."

"Yeah, we scare the hell out of people."

"I'd like to scare a little hell out of Kevin O'Leary."

"I'm with you there. Alana was right. He is a pig. What do you think of Sun? Telling the truth about the tapes?"

Kyle shrugged. "I doubt it. Maybe he got some money from O'Leary to hide them. He isn't above employing fifteen year olds, we know that."

"We think that."

Kyle sent Stan Perry off to talk with Pleasant's lawyer, while he called the first name on Delinsky's list and asked if they could come by. It was a girl, nervous and giggling, who agreed they could come and gave directions.

"You want me to take you home first?" Kyle asked. "I can do this."

"Jesus, Terry, I know that." Burgess stared out the window. The snow was already a dirty gray. A gray landscape and gray weather, with a piercing damp that made his bones ache. Marks of violence on children's bodies made his heart ache, made him simmer with unproductive anger. At least anger had given him some energy. "Let's follow this a little, see where it takes us." He hoped it took them to O'Leary. Regretted that he only had one good arm. He was dying to slam that plug-ugly face into something unyielding.

Chapter 22

The six teenage witnesses were bright, helpful, caring and shocked, but an hour in their company brought not much more than Delinsky's succinct one-paragraph summary. They thought the car might be a Lexus or a Mercedes. The truck it had almost collided with was a FedEx van. Weary and unenlightened, he and Kyle drove through the damp, gray dusk back to headquarters.

The station was bright and quiet. The shift change had come and gone, leaving rows of tired radios and flashlights to recharge. Civilian day people were winding down. The phones were resting. Burgess, who'd dozed during the ride, was having trouble getting going again. Sleep was like sex or alcohol—getting a little only made you want more.

His plans to get on to other things were derailed by bureaucratic minutiae. Check in with Melia. Check in with Cote. Check with Andrea Dwyer, the cop who was babysitting Mai Phung. A bit of good news. There had been no rape. Then he had to follow up with Federal Express. See the shift commander and arrange for a door-to-door on the street near the video store. Arrange for a crime scene team. Write reports. Read reports.

Stan Perry came back from his interview with Martha McFarland looking sour, and reported two cases against Pleasant, both settled. No details forthcoming. He hadn't hit it off with the attorney. Burgess, being an experienced detective, deduced this from the comment that she probably ate babies for breakfast. Perry'd been too late for the courthouse, would get on it in the morning. He had a pile of stuff he'd copied at Pleasant's house to go through, but from the number of dunning letters, it looked like a grim financial picture. None of the missing credit cards had been used. The widow had been icy.

"I missed lunch," Perry complained. "And my feet got soaked. Car rolled through a huge puddle and dumped a wall of muddy water on me. Everything's going to have to go to the cleaners. Even my underwear's wet. And my sometimes girlfriend has left three messages complaining that I don't call her. Call her? I don't even have time to brush my teeth." He threw himself into his chair and kicked his desk drawer shut.

"Makes you wonder why you wanted to be a detective, doesn't it?" Burgess said. Pleasant's records could wait for morning. He wanted to sit in a comfortable chair, put his feet up, and eat things that were bad for him. He wanted to open some Jack Daniels and drink himself into oblivion, go somewhere murder victims and needy survivors couldn't find him. He wished he could tell Perry and Kyle to take a break. They were as ragged as he was. But he couldn't. Not 'til they cracked this thing or wore out their leads.

"Hey, Terry," he said, "think you could give me a ride home?"

Kyle hefted the trash bag they'd taken from the video store. "How about we get some take-out and watch six movies."

"Six movies?" Perry said, getting up from his desk and walking over. "Don't you guys need sleep?" He still looked fresh and dewy, despite the sad condition of his stylish suit. Just looking at him gave Burgess heartburn, and he liked Perry. Kid probably didn't creak when he walked.

"Homemade porn, maybe," Kyle said. "O'Leary's private collection. Wanna come?"

"You think I have to ask my mother or something?"

"Girlfriend. If you still have one."

Perry just shrugged. "Last thing I need's a ball and chain who thinks a cop works normal hours. Joe's place, right? It's the only one clean enough for company." Perry shook his head. "What's wrong with us that none of us are married?"

"I was married once," Kyle reminded him. "The PMS queen's enough to put a guy off marriage forever."

"We're social misfits," Burgess suggested. His phone rang. He eyed it warily, wondering what kind of bad news it was bringing. Hoping it wasn't going to be more work. It wasn't likely to be someone calling to confess. He half expected to hear that O'Leary had been found dead. It was a logical step in this chain of violence. Reluctantly, he answered. "Burgess, investigations."

His sister Sandy's voice exploded out of the phone. "Joe, you are such an asshole! I cannot believe it. You slept with her!"

"Not exactly..." he began, "it wasn't like that..."

"Don't start with me. I'm not some judge or lawyer. Some baby cop who thinks you walk on water. I'm your sister. I know how you work. I let you start talking and you'll convince me the poor kid had a hallucination or something. Look, there's no way to twist this around to make you look good. You've known Alana since she was seventeen. You're like a father to her. And now this!"

He didn't bother to mention that Alana's father had slept with her. It wasn't the right moment. Knowing Sandy, it wasn't the right moment for any kind of remark. She wasn't calling to hear his side, she just wanted to yell at him. "Sandy, look—"

"I don't care what your explanation is! I'm so pissed at you, Joe Burgess."

"I'm getting that impression."

"This isn't funny. You, of all people, should know better. You could ruin your career with something like this. You know she's always been crazy about you. Did you think this would help? That if you did this, she'd get over it? I mean, honestly, Joe, what could you possibly have been thinking?"

He held the phone at an arm's length, letting the angry words pour out. Let her get a little of it out of her system. "Sandy, listen, will you let me get a word in?"

She sighed. "All right."

"It was rape," he said.

"You didn't!"

"Not me. Alana. You ask her. I was drugged, asleep, helpless. She took advantage of me. By the time I was fully conscious, I'd been violated."

"Oh! You! That's disgusting." His sister slammed down the phone.

So much for truth. He wished he hadn't answered. It would take hours of talking to put this right. And it still wouldn't be right. If Sandy would listen to him. At least he knew the value of Alana's promise that his secret was safe with her. Next he'd be reading it on the front page of the Press Herald. Maverick cop coercing sex from prostitutes. Honored detective ends distinguished career in disgrace.

"Trouble, Joe?" Kyle asked.

"Sandy. Calling to yell at me about sleeping with Alana."

"Ouch!" Kyle slung his coat over his shoulder. "Ready?"

"Yeah. Let's leave before something else goes wrong."

"Bring the letters, okay? Stan, you coming?"

"I wasn't sure I was invited."

"Oh, we're all for one and one for all around here, aren't we, Joe?"

Rush hour should have been over, but the snow had slowed everything and driving was still a nightmare. On every block a stuck car was being pushed, on every third, a patrol car, light bar flashing, sorted out a fender-bender. Kyle was cool with it. He tuned the radio to NPR. "Love those BBC announcers. Listen to a few reports from the Middle East and India and it puts things in perspective." Confident British voices competed with the hiss of the tires, clods of snow slamming on the undercarriage, the intermittent thunk of wipers. The storm had gone, leaving a clear black sky sparkling with stars. Against the black, the time and temperature sign kept the city informed.

"I've got a feeling," Kyle said. "Somewhere in the stuff we're going to look at tonight there's dynamite."

"Right now, it would take dynamite just to keep my eyes open."

Kyle swung into the restaurant parking lot and pulled into the handicapped space. "You're handicapped," he told Burgess. "Anything special you want?"

"Boneless spareribs. General Gau's chicken."

"Boneless spareribs is an oxymoron," Kyle said, getting out of the car.

The interior cooled off quickly, the chill seeping through his skin and digging into his bones. At least he was alone. To distract himself from his miserable body, he regurgitated what he knew and chewed it over. If Pleasant was being blackmailed because of an incriminating video tape, why put himself in a situation where it might happen again? Had he been killed because he was out-of-control, because if he were bailed out, he'd only get in trouble again? If so, who'd arranged it? His wife? Jack Kelly? Ted Shaw? He liked Ken Bailey for it, but that was because Bailey pissed him off.

If it was a set-up, as the facts suggested, using O'Leary made sense. He had a record going back to age thirteen. Placed no value on human life. But who'd hired O'Leary?

Then there were the pieces that didn't fit. If Pleasant was killed because of scandalous behavior and embarrassing videotapes, why do it in a way that would be so embarrassing to his family and colleagues? Unless someone had decided to cut him loose? Or they'd decided that embarrassment of that sort was better than the scandal revelation of his drug sales would cause? If there was anything to the drug angle. Oxycontin was hot on the street. People would pay big bucks to get it. And Pleasant had had an inside track. Another thing that didn't fit was the man in the truck who'd been stalking him. And who was the girl—Karen—who'd asked O'Leary to arrange the meeting? Where did they fit in?