The Angel of Knowlton Park (22 page)

"I will," Melia said. Burgess thought he meant it. That the lieutenant, father of twin boys, would stop at church on his way home, have a private talk with God. "See me when you're through. We've got to get moving on this thing, give him something for the press."

Like Burgess had spent the morning playing footsie with Chris and then gone rain-skipping instead of watching a small boy being carved up. "I'll be as quick as I can."

"I'll bet you will," followed him down the hall.

Cote's office was neat as a pin and deliciously cool, but the man wasn't enjoying it. He sat glaring at a stack of papers, his face a dangerous red. Burgess knocked, entered, and dropped into a chair, waiting for the opening salvo. Cote wasn't going to cut him any slack because he'd just come from the autopsy of a child and a brutal interview with the child's heartbroken sister. He didn't give a damn how many black things swam in Burgess's head or how many walking wounded his detectives had dealt with. When he wasn't crunching stats or formulating rules and regulations designed to keep them from catching bad guys, Cote lived to chew ass. He slapped the folded newspaper down and stabbed the picture. "How in the hell did this happen?" Same thing Melia asked, yet an entirely different question.

"I don't know," he said, "but I can guess. You want to hear about the autopsy?"

Cote shook the paper spastically. "I want to know about this."

"You call the paper and ask them? You tell them exactly how devastating and painful that photo is to those who knew and loved the victim?" He saw Iris Martin's face—her tears, the small teeth biting her lip to stop its trembling, her diminished, stricken look. "Did you tell them how unnecessary such a graphic illustration is to the reporting of the story? Or how the information revealed could compromise the investigation? You threaten to cut them off?"

He knew the answer. Cote thought his job was to harass the men in his own department, not to manage the media or help with the investigation. When Cote didn't respond, he moved on to his next agenda item. "Lee will fax in his report as soon as it's ready, but basically, the child was stunned by a blow to the head and killed by a series of penetrating knife wounds including one which pierced the pericardium and punctured the left ventricle of the heart. Causes of death: exsanguination and cardiac tamponade. And yes, the boy was sexually assaulted."

There was more he could have shared but didn't. He'd learned from experience that Cote couldn't be trusted. It would all be in his reports, but he'd found that if he buried details in the middle, chances were Cote wouldn't read them. Unlike his predecessor, and unlike Vince Melia, who would know names, facts, and details, Cote didn't read reports, he acquired them. A fat, miserable, mean little paperwork miser.

"Sexually assaulted?" Cote said it as though the idea delighted him because it made the crime more lurid. As though they needed it to be worse. "I'm briefing the press at four. I wonder—" He broke off. "You and Melia need to put something together for me."

Burgess felt the itch in his palms that made him want to grab that wattled throat again. He forced his fists open, squeezing his knees hard enough to hurt. "Was there anything else, sir? You've got my preliminary reports there?"

Cote, frustrated by his inability to pick a fight, only sighed, already looking for a new way to make Burgess snap. "It's been more than twenty-four hours," he said. "And you haven't got anything for me?"

Burgess looked at the thick folder of reports, representing so many hours of hard work by so many people. "Everything you see there."

"I'm talking about a suspect."

"We're looking at some people."

Cote shook his head like a disappointed parent. "Keep me informed, Burgess. Keep me informed."

Burgess supposed, given the theatrical way it was delivered, that the words were meant to be a threat. Goddamned fool wasting his time in here with puffery when he ought to be downstairs with Melia and the other detectives, working out their strategy for where to go next. He got up to leave.

"The family," Cote said. "How are they taking it? Are they doing all right?"

Confirmation that Cote hadn't read their reports and wasn't likely to be on board when they wanted a warrant to toss the house. Cops often walked a fine line in situations where family members fell into the pool of suspects; here that line seemed somewhat less fine, given the amphetamine and Dwayne Martin's assault on Perry. It was in his report. It was on the master evidence list. Sighing inwardly, Burgess put on his best solemn face. "Frankly, sir? Except for the deaf sister, Iris, I'm not sure they've even noticed."

He left before he said something he'd regret. Could the captain really not know that one family member had sent a cop to the hospital and been locked up for assault? Maybe Cote, uninformed and unwilling to be, thought Dwayne Martin's attack resulted from grief.

In the face of death, it was important to check on the living. He found Perry, bandage prominent on his shaved head, glowering over a chaotic desk. "How you doing, Stan?"

"Got a bitchin' headache."

Terry Kyle, dead white and skeletal, hunched over another. Burgess asked the same question. Got a brusque, unamplified "fine."

"Gonna give us a team name," he said as he limped past, signaling them to meet him in the conference room, "build up some morale in you sorry lot. Gonna call us the Crips. I'll round up Vince and Wink."

"Hey!" Perry complained. "They can't be on our team. They ain't crips!"

Burgess picked up a baseball bat someone had taken from a drugged out teenager, and socked it into the palm of his hand. It made a pleasant sound, reminiscent of simpler days and times. "We can take care of that." Swinging the bat, he stuck his head into Melia's office. "Got a few minutes, Lou?"

Melia's eyes fixed on the bat. "You got the wrong guy. Honest."

Burgess thwacked the bat into his hand a few times, wishing he could really hit something. "I know that. I'm going to get Wink."

"Don't hurt him, either. We need him."

He went down to the lab, couldn't find anyone around, finally found Dani Letorneau in a back room, bending over the blue blanket, carefully putting things into envelopes. She made shooing motions. "Get out, Joe. You're gonna contaminate things."

He knew she meant with hair and fibers, but the real contaminating thing about him was a virulent case of bad temper. "Seen Wink?"

She gave him a smile, the first bright spot in his day. Sometimes it was striking how valuable a smile could be. "He suddenly jumped up, muttering something about a cheeseburger, and went flying out the door. Is there a message?" She eyed the baseball bat. "If you want to know can he come out and play, he can't. He has to stay in today and clean his room. You've seen the mess out there." Sure he had. Bags and bags. Envelopes. Jars. Cartons. Dani held out a pale white arm. "Just when I was planning to work on my tan."

Burgess checked his watch. "If he's back in the next twenty minutes or so, send him up to the conference room, would you?"

"Sure thing." She bent over the blanket again. Willing to spend a minute to share a smile, but not much more. Carefully plucking something up with tweezers, she said. "We gonna get him, Joe?"

"Absolutely."

Melia wasn't there yet. It was just the Three Musketeers, Perry ragging on Terry Kyle, light-hearted, profane, and heartfelt.

"I know a good hit-man, down Saco. Take out Wanda the PMS Queen faster than you can shake the drops off your dick. You want me to call him?"

Kyle stared out at the pearl gray day. "I blew it," he said. "I'm sorry."

Burgess slid into his seat, looking at his team. Neither of them looked first string today, The Crips, but collectively, they were good. He opened the case folder. Masses of paper since he'd left last night. Reports from the neighborhood canvass. Reports from Delinsky, Devlin, from Stan Perry. Logs of evidence from the crime scene and the name and rank of everyone who had entered it. The list of sex offenders. Copies of the criminal records of the victim's family. He didn't see anything about Osborne or Timmy's file from the Department of Human Services.

Melia entered, opened his own file, and nodded at Burgess, content to have his sergeant run things. Rocky Jordan followed, slipping quietly into a seat, carefully aligning a stack of papers on the table in front of him. Compared to the rest of them, Jordan was the picture of health. He looked liked he'd slept, washed, and shaved, like he hadn't dressed in the dark with fumbling, exhausted hands. Maybe he'd eaten something healthier than fast food in the last twenty-four hours. Burgess pulled out the license number from Alan Gordon. "Rocky, can you run this for me, see who the owner is and if he has a record?" Rocky nodded.

"Lee says we've got a right-handed stabber," Burgess said, holding up his hand to show how the knife had been held. "Eleven wounds. Couple good impressions of the hilt, in case we ever find the weapon. Boy was molested. Lee says probably no semen. Guesstimate of time of death, between ten and twelve. Last meal, hot dogs. Last known meal, he picked at a peanut butter and jelly sandwich between 3 and 4, so someone fed him later. I've got last sightings variously at five-thirty, six and seven. That last is from his brother, Dwayne, so it's not very reliable."

He looked around at the others. "Updates?"

"Did another search around the pond this morning," Perry said, absently fingering the bandage. "I think we found the thing Osborne's dog took."

"What?" His chair was uncomfortable. He couldn't find a position for his knee that didn't hurt. The chicken sandwich sat like a rock in his stomach.

"It's pretty disgusting, between dog saliva, pond scum, and mud." Perry set a plastic container on the table. It held a dirty pillow, eight or ten inches square. The color was obscured by dirt, but it had once been cheerful yellow and blue needlepoint. Burgess knew immediately where he'd seen a similar one.

"What is it, Joe?" Melia asked.

"Osborne's got two just like this in his living room."

"He'll claim his dog brought this one to the park," Perry said.

"When I interviewed him yesterday, he said his dog had taken nothing from the body, carried nothing down into the cattails. Where'd you find it?"

"In the cattails." Devlin slipped in and took a chair.

Kyle shuffled his papers. "Osborne? Nothing on him but some calls from worried parents, but I talked to the PD in his old town, outside Boston. Same story. He hung around playgrounds, showed an inordinate interest in kids. They thought he was dirty. Never could get anything to nail him. Before that, Jersey cops got him there for soliciting sex from a male minor. That got misdemeanored. Delinsky's going through the field observation cards." Kyle's voice had the whispery weakness of someone recovering from a long illness. He sagged in his chair like a resting stork. Only his eyes alive.

Burgess checked his notes. "You figured out who we should re-interview, Ter?"

"Still working on it. Canvass just got done. Lotta people in that neighborhood playing hard to get."

"Sex offenders, Stan?"

Perry plucked at his bandage again. "Averages about one per house. Oughta rename that part of town Sodom and Gomorrah."

"Vince, what's the story on that Human Services file? They don't want to give it up, let's get a warrant. We can't wait for interdepartmental politics on this one. I need to know who made reports about the family. When. And what their response was." Melia nodded and made a note. Melia was his boss, but on a case like this, Melia usually gave him his head and only asked to be kept up-to-date. "Delinsky around?"

"Night shift commander wasn't happy, but we've got him as long as we want."

"Okay, campers. This is a bad one." Their eyes were on him, their pens poised. Kyle was breathing like someone trying not to heave, Perry picking at the bandage again, everyone waiting for what they didn't have—a good lead. Burgess said, "For starters, let's check out those sex offenders, anyone with a history of kids or kiddie porn. Terry will make a list of people to re-interview, or people who weren't home who still need to be seen. We've still got nothing on those last few hours. We're looking for someone called the witch. That blue car. Anyone who saw Timmy after he left Mrs. Johnston's porch."

Perry's fingers worked the bandage loose. "Stan, stop picking at that thing!"

The hand dropped like a stone. "Sorry, Dad."

"I'm not your goddamned dad."

He summed up his interview with Iris Martin, her confirmation that Dwayne was mad at Timmy for taking something, her information that Timmy had run away before. His sense that she was hiding something. "She says Osborne used the dog to frighten Timmy into taking his clothes off, then photographed him naked. We got the pillow, we got this, we got the family's story. Vince, can you ask the AG's office if that's enough for a warrant? Who's on it, anyway? There was no one at the ME's." In Maine, even in a big city like Portland, the Attorney General's office prosecuted all the homicides.

"I'll ask Paul," Melia said.

Their crime scene photos were pinned up on the board, spread out on the table. Burgess flipped the picture of Timmy on the climbing structure onto the table. "Just so we all remember. This is our victim."

It landed next to a close-up of the stab wounds. Kyle looked from one to the other, lurched from his chair, and left the room. Melia watched, his eyes dark and worried in a sea of tiny wrinkles. He stroked the dark stubble on his chin, fingers rasping in the silence. "You need more help on this, Joe? I could..."