The Angel of Knowlton Park (24 page)

He crunched up to them across the dry grass. They stood together, the boy's shoulder tight against the girl's side, watching his approach with tense faces and scared eyes. Same faces. Same frank, greenish eyes with profuse lashes. Pale skin. Freckles. The boy had rusty red hair; the girl's a softer color.

When he got close, she said, "Are you the detective? That lady police officer said we had to wait here until a detective came to talk to us. Now we're going to get in trouble. We were supposed to be home already." Her tone was matter-of-fact, as though grown-ups doing things to get her in trouble was normal.

"Who are you going to be in trouble with?" he asked. "Your mom?"

"Our foster mom. She doesn't like us wandering around the neighborhood. Not after what happened. I got us half an hour to come down here looking for bottles, so we could rent a movie for Ned." She shrugged, an elaboration of bony shoulders in a thin white cotton tank top. The nipples of her small breasts were visible through the cloth. It was something he couldn't understand. Why adults who were otherwise protective let girls go around dressed like hookers. Showing his age, he guessed. Even his own nieces dressed like this. One had even gone and gotten a tattoo.

"I'll call her," he said, "explain what happened. Or I can drive you home, tell her then. You live far from here?"

"Not too far," she said.

Her brother, still stuck to her side, hadn't said a word, just stood there with his eyes wide. Burgess bent down and held out his hand. "Joe Burgess," he said, "and you are?"

The small hand came out and fitted itself into his. "Ned."

"You got a last name, Ned?"

"Mallett. Two l's and two t's," the girl said.

Burgess kept Ned's hand in his. "You like ice cream?" he asked.

The solemn face crinkled in an impish grin. "Hate it," the boy said, his eyes dancing. "I could hate a great big ice cream cone right now. Orange sherbet, maybe?"

"Sounds good to me," Burgess said. "I could hate a great big mocha fudge. How about you, Nina?"

She considered. "I could hate a chocolate shake."

"Then let's go. We can talk as well over ice cream as we can here. And it'll be cooler." He released Ned's hand.

"We're not supposed to talk to strangers," Nina said. There was a note in her voice that made him suspect a wicked, thirteen-year-old sense of humor, but he gave her a serious answer.

"It's all right. I'm a police officer. We're the one type of stranger you can talk to."

Another bony little shrug. "Okay," she said. She turned on her heel and headed back toward the street, holding out a hand to her brother, a clanking plastic bag dangling from the other. The cans and bottles they'd collected. He'd done the same thing as a kid, first by himself, then supervising his little sisters. On a good day, they'd felt like millionaires. Gone nuts at the penny candy store.

The ice cream place was heaven. At least fifteen degrees cooler and the moisture had been wrung out of the air. They sat in a booth, waited on by a heavy-featured teenaged lout who eyed Nina's breasts—nipples erect from the cold—with undisguised interest. He had to struggle to take down their order. When he left, she rolled her eyes and muttered, "Jerk."

With great restraint, Burgess refrained from suggesting more clothes. He knew the rules—a woman was entitled to dress however she pleased and still be free from sexually harassing behavior. He also knew reality. That men had only recently come down from the trees and were regularly flooded with the desire to throw women over their shoulders and do a bit of recreational procreating. Politics always ran ahead of evolution.

"Tell me about finding the clothes in that trash can," he said.

Nina gave an affirmative nod, pleased to be getting down to business. "We have a routine," she said. "We start at one end and work our way down, doing all the cans. We like to do it around this time of day, in the summer, when we don't have school, because the street people come later. They creep me out." She twisted a strand of hair around her finger, held it a second, and released it. "There's not much to tell. When we got to that can, we opened it and started digging. Just under some newspapers, we found that bag. I thought maybe someone had thrown away something good. We do find good stuff sometimes, so I opened it." She stopped, eyeing her brother and then looking up at Burgess.

"Ned," he said, "would you mind going up to the counter and telling the man to make that a double cone?"

"Sure." Ned jumped to his feet, started away, and turned back. "Can I tell him I want a double cone, too?"

"Of course."

Ned scampered away and Nina said, "As soon as I looked in the bag, I saw they were little boy's clothes. Neddy loves the Power Rangers, too. And they had what looked like blood on them. First thing, I thought we should just get out of there, you know?" She twisted up the hair again. "But then I thought, if it had been Neddy, instead of that other little boy, I wouldn't want someone to just walk away, would I?"

Newspapers and TV were always full of apocalyptic crap about how teenagers had all gone to hell and the future of the nation looked bleak, but Burgess had found many a hero and heroine among them. He was a lot more cynical about adults. "You did the right thing," he said, "and we appreciate it."

She narrowed her eyes. "You're awfully nice. You sure you're a cop?"

"You want to see my badge?"

"I dunno." A little wriggle on the seat. "Maybe I should. I mean, anyone can say he's a cop, right?"

"Right." He showed her his ID.

She took it with a big grin, studied it, and nodded. Very much a thirteen-year-old, but also a cautious, methodical child. "That's so cool." She handed it back as the waiter stumped up, delivered a chocolate shake to Nina's chest, and stumped away again.

Burgess watched the waiter walk toward them again carrying two cones piled high with melting ice cream. As drops of chocolate and orange dribbled onto the floor, he thought of the debacle that would occur when Ned and the cone got together. He grabbed a handful of napkins, wrapped some around the cone, and handed it to Ned, who'd followed the waiter back to the table. He piled the rest in front of the boy.

He gave a series of quick licks to contain his own cone, and asked the pro forma question, "Did you see anyone around the trash can before you checked it? See anyone put anything in?"

It was the question she'd been waiting for. She peered at him between her dark lashes and said, "Yes. Someone parked at the curb, got out of a car, and put something in the can. A white plastic bag."

"Could you tell anything about the person?"

Nina shook her head emphatically. "We were too far away."

"No, we weren't," Ned insisted. "You were talking to that boy, so you didn't pay any attention." He ran a quick pink tongue around the edge of his cone and smiled shyly up at Burgess. "I saw who got out of the car."

"Who?"

Ned looked suddenly very serious, sitting there with an orange face, holding his cone carefully in two hands, melted ice cream running over his fingers and down the backs of his hands. "I didn't know her," he said. "Some lady."

Chapter 18

It didn't make sense. This wasn't a woman's crime. His mind zipped through possibilities as ice cream dripped down his hand. He leaned forward, reining in his eagerness. "How do you know it was a woman?"

Ned gave him the "you are a stupid grown-up" look. "She just was."

"How far away were you?"

He spread his hands wide apart. "This far," he said.

"Nina?"

She looked out the window, spotted a fire hydrant about 100 yards away. "Here to the hydrant, maybe?"

She looked away, suddenly interested in what was happening outside. "I was talking to this boy."

"Someone you know?"

She shook her head. "Not really. I've seen him around."

Another witness, Burgess thought. "Know his name?"

"No." She wouldn't talk to him about boys. To her girlfriends, she could giggle for hours, but not to some strange male cop. This might be a job for Andrea Dwyer.

"The boy was talking to me," Ned declared.

Nina rolled her eyes. Then she looked at her brother and sighed. "Oh, Neddy, look at you! Auntie Mary's gonna kill you. She's gonna kill both of us. That's a brand new shirt!" She shot Burgess a look. "Brand new Salvation Army shirt."

Burgess got up and dumped his cone in the trash. He liked ice cream, and those first few bites had been great, but he didn't have much appetite, and he had no patience with the mess. When he was on a case, he ate to live, mostly too busy to eat. He returned to the table, grabbed a handful of napkins, and tried to make Ned presentable.

Nina, watching him, said, "You must have kids."

"So you didn't see this person?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, someone got out of the car and put something in the trash. It was like a blip on the screen, you know. I guess all I thought was maybe it was some bottles. That would have been okay."

"Did you notice whether it was a man or a woman?" She shook her head. "What about the car? You notice the car?"

"Look," she said, her face had acquired a nervous, pinched quality, "I was happy to tell you about the clothes. I mean willing. Because it was a kid. But me and Neddy, we don't want to get involved. Neddy's been through enough bad stuff. You understand?"

Thirteen going on forty. Nina dipped a napkin in her water glass and scrubbed at her brother's face and hands. She didn't want to get involved because she was afraid for her little brother. "I understand," he said. Understood enough, would learn the rest from Auntie Mary. "Here's my problem. I need to catch that little boy's killer. I can't do it without help. Help like you making that phone call when you found the clothes. Maybe the person you saw dumping trash didn't put the clothes in that bin. But I have to check it out. And to do that, I need all the information you can give me."

"It was a blue car," Ned said, crunching on his cone. "Not very big."

"Neddy..." his sister cautioned.

"Nina, it's okay."

"You don't know that," she said, her eyes clouded with worries a child her age shouldn't have been carrying. "Look. Neddy's all I've got."

Now it was Burgess's turn to stare out the window. "Can you tell me anything about the woman?"

"She was regular."

"Medium height. Medium width," Nina explained.

"Hair color?"

"She was wearing a hat."

"What else was she wearing?"

"A tan coat."

A hat and coat on a hot summer day. A peculiar way to avoid being noticed, if Nina's information was accurate. "She stopped the car, got out, put something in the trash bin and drove away. Is that all?"

"She looked around," Nina said. Her voice dropped. "She might have seen us."

"I want you to stay away from those trash bins for a while," Burgess said.

"You bet."

Ned's face crumpled. He set the gnawed tip of his cone on the table and said, "Then how will we rent a movie?"

"Come on," Burgess said, getting up. "I'll drive you home. We can rent a movie on the way."

"You don't have to do that," Nina said. "He'll survive. He's kind of whiny since..." She didn't finish the sentence.

"I don't have to," he agreed. "But it would be nice, don't you think?"

"I don't believe you're a cop," she said.

He sighed. When he came on the force, America's disenchantment with the police was just beginning. The messes the LA and New York police got themselves into hadn't helped. He'd spent his entire adult life trying to help people, solve their problems, keep them safe. It hurt to face a child who believed a police officer couldn't be nice. "What can I say?" he asked her. "I am. I've been a cop a long, long time."

"You are pretty old, aren't you," she agreed.

A KO punch straight to the gut. In his heart, he was always eighteen. Could still remember goofing around with his buddies, trying to attract the attention of girls like Nina. How much a girl's look or smile or encouragement mattered. Those nostalgic memories of how impossibly hopeful and insanely stupid they'd all been never entirely went away.