The Angel of Knowlton Park (2 page)

The fat, blue-black fly circled lazily in the July heat before landing in the child's open eye. Burgess stifled his instinctive impulse to brush it away. He'd just started working this scene, and he wasn't letting anything muck up his chances of learning everything it had to say about what had happened to this small dead boy.

Forty minutes ago, he'd been on vacation, a packed suitcase by the door and a borrowed canoe waiting on the roof of his car. Asleep until Lt. Vince Melia, head of CID for the Portland, Maine Police Department, called.

"Hate to do this to you, Joe, but we've got a bad one. Half my staff's on vacation or out sick, and I can't find Kyle." An uncharacteristic hesitation, then Melia said, "It's a kid, Joe. Name's Timothy Watts."

The body had been left in a city park, wrapped in a soft blue blanket so new it was still creased from the package, the blue over the torso stained purple by blood. Only the boy's head was visible, a pale, elfin face with a sprinkle of freckles, tangled pale hair, and, where the lips parted, teeth that cried out for orthodontia. It didn't matter now.

Was he seeing too much in the careful tucking of the blanket, covers drawn up to the chin like a mother settling her child for sleep, the edges tucked in to guard against the damp night air? What was it telling him? The body had not been dumped; it had been arranged. But was the arrangement love or hate? Remorse? A kind of "in your face" defiance or a deliberate attempt to confuse the investigation?

The two evidence techs, Rudy Carr and Wink Devlin, shifted in the heat, impatient to start their pictures, but Burgess lingered, taking the time to study the scene. Sure, after they released the body, there'd be the pictures, but pictures were only that. Pictures. They couldn't duplicate the feeling of this time and place, where the body had been placed, the layout of the park and surrounding streets, whether houses overlooked this spot.

This was the moment he usually made his promise of justice to his victim, but this time, it was Terry Kyle's promise to make. As soon as Kyle showed up, this was going to be his case. Burgess turned away, closing his eyes against images already imbedding themselves in his brain, then opened them again, looking downhill toward the crime scene van. The bright orange canoe looked ridiculous parked next to the yellow crime scene tape. Where in hell
was
Kyle? This was not supposed to be Burgess's scene, his body, his problem. Not
his
kid.

Not yet 7:00 a.m. and already his clothes were stuck to his body. They were having an ugly summer. The salty Maine air, normally refreshing even when it was sweltering inland, had been cooked by hot, windless days into a fetid, sour brine. A rank miasma of smells rose up from old brick and asphalt, from dumpsters and alleys, fishing boats and bars, making the port seem seedy and derelict. Two weeks without sea breezes and the city needed a shower.

Burgess preferred winter, however cold and raw. You could always add layers. There was only so much you could take off, especially at a high-visibility crime scene. He'd left his jacket in the car and wore a short-sleeved shirt, but his tie was choking him and sweat had darkened the dull red silk. As he bent over the body again, drops of sweat ski-jumped off his nose onto the blanket.

Finally, with a nod, he stepped back. Devlin and Carr had already taken video and photographs of the body from a distance. Now they moved in for close-ups. Stan Perry, the other CID detective, was sketching the scene. He and Stan had already measured off the distance to the body from a couple fixed objects—a hydrant up above on the street and a square granite post at the edge of the roses that bordered the park—and gotten seriously scratched for their troubles. The roses hadn't been planted solely for horticultural appeal. They kept the public on the paths, meaning there was only one likely way the killer could have approached to drop the body.

Burgess surveyed the growing crowd, edging over as Carr lowered the video camera and mopped his face. "Get me some pictures of the people watching, up there on the street, would you? And those down by Delinsky?"

"Sure thing, Sarge."

Carr was good. He'd drift back to the crime scene van, camera slung casually on his shoulder, and people would never know he was taking their picture when he paused to look back the way he'd come or when he sauntered over to ask a question or study something on the ground.

This was one where the killer might come back. It wasn't just a cop show cliché. Bad guys did. Sometimes because they were dumb. Sometimes because they thought they were so smart. Often because they couldn't stay away.

"You going to be able to get the dew on the body?" Burgess asked. "On the blanket?"

"Hey," Wink grumbled. "I'm the Annie Leibovitz of crime scenes, remember?" He raised the camera, then lowered it again. "Someday we oughta have a show. Your best pics, my best pics. That would be something."

Burgess's walls were ringed with his own crime scene photos, the ones he took when everyone had left and the scenes were empty. "I hate to think who'd come," he said.

"It might be very instructive." Devlin raised his camera, circling the body slowly like a spider inspecting its prey.

Once their pictures were taken and the sketch was done, everything would stop, like God had hit the pause button, until the medical examiner arrived. It was the law. At a crime scene, the ME owned the body. Burgess hoped Dr. Lee would come soon. Too long in this heat and Timmy Watts wouldn't be the only body on the ground. That was the homicide detective's life. Twenty below or 110 in the shade, the call came, you went and worked the scene. No rolling over for a few more z's. You had to give the dead their due.

He pulled out his notebook, following the path they'd lined out with crime scene tape back downhill to ask Gabriel Delinsky, the first officer on the scene, a question about the damp grass and footprints and what he'd seen when he first arrived.

As he approached, the crowd around Delinsky surged forward. They were pressed back, and then Delinsky went down. A large figure pushed past and headed up the hill. Burgess shoved the notebook back in his pocket.

"Stan," he called, "we've got trouble. Rudy? Call for more officers. Whatever you do, don't let people up here..."

The figure in the lead was a woman, followed by two or three men, then Delinsky and Lt. Melia and the patrol officers who were protecting the scene. If it was a race, she was the clear winner. She made a kind of roaring noise as she came, her feet thudding on the dry ground like the hooves of a charging animal. She was nearly Burgess's height, an easy 6', and outweighed him by a good hundred pounds. She had to be the boy's mother, though it seemed impossible this bulky creature was related to that small, golden child.

"Timmy," she roared, "my Timmy," her mouth a dark "O" in her broad face. White flesh oozed from the armholes of her torn housedress. As Burgess stepped into her path, he caught the reek of alcohol and stale sweat.

"Move!" she barked, swinging an arm the size of an Easter ham.

Burgess stood his ground. He knew what would happen if she got past. She'd throw herself on the child's body, embrace it, unwrap it, toss it around, claw at the wounds, maybe even try to carry him away. If there was a weapon, she'd handle it. His crime scene would be destroyed.

"Ma'am..." He held up a hand, trying to capture her attention. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but you can't go up there." Keeping his voice steady and firm. "You can't go up there. You have to let us do our job." His words bounced off like balls off a wall.

"Timmy!" She flailed her arms as she tried to push past. "Timmy. My baby... my poor, poor baby. I've got to go to him..."

Up close, her smell was overwhelming. Graying clumps of unwashed hair dripped from her skull in Medusa coils. Her eyes jumped in her face, wild and unfocused, the pupils gigantic. He'd seen all kinds of bizarre behavior spawned by shock and grief. This didn't look like grief, though. This looked like drugs.

Where in hell was everyone? He stepped back, trying to block her way while avoiding her flailing fists. "I'm sorry, ma'am..." He raised his voice. "Ma'am, I know you're upset, but you have to stay back behind the yellow tape."

Melia was beside him now, other officers around them, but Burgess didn't take his eyes off her. "This is Lt. Melia," he said. "We will keep you informed, I promise, but you need to go with him now and let us finish our work."

"Get the fuck outa my way!" she yelled, spitting words and stinking breath in his face as she drove a vicious kick into his shin. She slammed into his shoulder and shoved past. "Timmyyyy. Timmyyyy!"

But Burgess had been a high school football player, and though it had been thirty years since the local paper called him "lightning and poetry on the field," he hadn't forgotten his moves. He was around and after her, seizing her great, stinking, rubbery mass. He felt her resist, then yield, her weight coming back at him, his feet slipping on the dew-slicked dry grass. There was pressure, then incredible pain in his bad knee as they crashed to the ground.

She began pounding him with fists like softballs full of knuckles, screaming, cursing, spitting, kicking at everyone within range. It took four officers to haul her off and subdue her until paramedics could get in to sedate her.

Burgess sat holding his knee, flashes of pain dancing like Northern Lights in his head, hoping the damage wasn't permanent. He wondered if the media had gotten it on film. If the Maine citizens eating their Wheaties this morning would be entertained by a beefy cop in a sweat-soaked shirt slamming the mother of a homicide victim to the ground only a dozen yards from her dead son's body. How long before some desk-jockey at 109 called him in for a speech on sullying the department's image. What life was like north of the Arctic Circle.

A hand on his shoulder made him look up. "Jesus, Joe. What do you think she's on? PCP? Amphetamines?" Melia looked miserable.

"She's on something."

"You okay?"

"No."

Melia jerked his head toward the ambo. "Need a ride to the hospital?"

"I'd walk before I'd ride with her."

"I could have someone drive you."

"We've got a dead kid, Vince."

"And you're no help if you can't even stand up."

"Oh, I'm a stand-up guy. You find Kyle yet?"

Melia shook his head. "Sent someone by his place and everywhere else I could think of. Even called his ex-wife. You know what she said?"

"Something about child support, I expect. The PMS Queen is kind of one note." Burgess shrugged. "So you're stuck with me, aren't you?"

Melia looked uphill toward the body. "You gonna be okay with this?"

Burgess would never be okay with a dead kid. They both knew that. Not since Kristin Marks. Little girl abducted, raped, strangled with her own underpants and dumped in a landfill. Burgess had just about worked himself to death on that case. When he'd heard the plea deal—guy walked with a slap on the wrist because Captain Cote screwed up a warrant and lost crucial evidence—Burgess had gone over the desk for Cote's throat. The case almost ended his career and left him wondering: was the job worth it if you couldn't get justice for the innocent and most vulnerable? He hadn't stopped trying.

Melia held out a hand and Burgess pulled himself up, pain stabbing in his leg. "You might see if those medics can spare some Demerol and an ace bandage."

"Your face is green," Melia said.

"Goes with the red tie. Christmas in July." Burgess shook his head. "So that was Mother Watts. Can't believe I didn't recognize her."

"She used to be a lot smaller. A real looker. Hard to believe it now," Melia said, looking at the EMTs struggling to load the massive woman. "Family's been over in the Lewiston-Auburn area about ten years. Moved back maybe six, eight months ago."

"Family report him missing?"

"What do you think?" Melia studied Burgess. "Joe, are you sure?"

Burgess made shooing motions with his hands. "Go, go, go," he said. "Ask the medical men for some Demerol, Tylenol with codeine, Motrin. Whatever they've got, but get me something. Like to get through here before we're all toast."

August in Maine wasn't supposed to be like this. They'd all be dehydrated and sick as dogs if they didn't take care. He radioed Delinsky, asked him to arrange a cooler of ice and a lot of sodas and bottled water. Then he limped up to Perry, who knelt beside the body.

Stan Perry was the newest detective in personal crimes. A promising investigator with great instincts and a disconcerting tendency toward impulsive behavior. Despite the heat, Perry wore a zipped-up Portland PD windbreaker. His face was pink as a ham.

"Lose the jacket, Stan," Burgess said. "You're gonna get heat stroke."

"Can't."

"So you've got a tee shirt on. Vince won't care."

"I dressed in a hurry," Perry said, unzipping so Burgess could see his shirt. It was navy blue and in large white letters, read:
Homicide—our day begins when your day ends.
"You think I'm going to parade this in front of the media, you're crazy. I'd rather get heat stroke. Besides, Vince sees this, he'll fire my ass. You know that."

Burgess pulled out his car keys. "In my trunk," he said. "In my suitcase. Lotta tee shirts. Help yourself. Only Stan?"

Perry took the keys. "Yeah?"