The Angel of Knowlton Park (31 page)

"Chris says they just want to see our handsome faces."

"You believe that?"

"Trying to."

"They're checking up," Kyle said.

They rode in silence through streets wrapped in a sullen layer of briny fog that looked like cotton candy and reduced visibility to zero. A good night for Osborne to lose himself in the city. Uniforms had found a trail of blood drops and the abandoned bike, but no sign of the man. Where would he go? Who would take him in? One of his own.

Burgess passed the radio to Kyle. "See if Rocky can give us a list of anyone in the area involved in child pornography. Anyone even suspected of such activities. See if he's found anything in Osborne's computer. Anything that looks like names or addresses or phone numbers of his porno pals. That's who he'll go to. He was carrying his cell phone. He must have called someone to pick him up."

That set off another light. "His cell phone. It's Verizon. Get the records. Find out who he called." His mind was racing now.

"Call Stan, tell him where we're going with this, that we'll be calling him to follow up if Rocky has anything. Get an address for that social worker. Jim Taylor. See why he left that private school in Oregon."

Kyle made the calls, ignoring Rocky's whining complaint and Stan's objection he was in the middle of something. Left it that if Rocky didn't come up with something, Stan should go home, be back for the meeting at seven.

He pulled into his driveway, shoved the car into park, and sat there, lacking the energy to open his door. Kyle didn't move, either. "We getting too old for this, Terry?"

"It's not age for me. I'm curdling," Kyle said. "Getting all sour and rotten inside. Can't find my decency, never mind any optimism. Case like this doesn't help. I don't know, we go up there, if I can even be civil. It's like Wanda's poisoned me and the only antidote is in a bottle. Sheesh, Joe. Some days, seven a.m., I'm already dreaming of that first drink."

Wanda was poison, but Kyle had done this to himself. "You have to fight back."

"I know. But Joe, being brought down to her level. Thinking about doing to her what she's been doing to me..."

"You've got Michelle."

"And how long do you think she's going to put up with a mean as a snake drunk with two kids and the bitch from hell calling at all hours of the day and night?"

"I think she'll stick."

"Why would any woman want to stay around, taking care of someone else's kids? Living with a guy who hasn't had a decent mood in months? I'm just like my goddamned father. Life gets tough, I crawl into a bottle."

"You want her to leave?"

"Shit, no. I want normal. Normal and decent. I want Cheerios with my kids. I want Michelle to keep smiling like seeing me matters. But what about her? Doesn't she deserve better?" Kyle got out and slammed the door behind him. He'd had as much conversation as he was good for.

Burgess used his right hand to open the door. His left arm wanted to be babied and he figured it was allowed a little down time. He was starving and craved protein, something raw and bloody. Just thinking "raw and bloody" took him right back to the crime scene. He'd forgotten to ask about the knife. He really wanted that knife. He called Melia. "They find anything in those storm drains?"

"Haven't done 'em yet, Joe. It's Sunday."

"We're
working."

"We're cops. Joe?"

"Yeah?"

Vince sounded harassed and explosive. Maybe he'd had a visit from Cote, looking for something to feed the media. "Catch me a bad guy."

"Go home, Vince," he said. "After we eat, we'll see what we can stir up. We get anything, we'll call you."

He trudged up the stairs. Chris, in gym shorts and a tank top, was bending down, getting something from the refrigerator, treating a row of frosty green Rolling Rocks to a view of her cleavage and him to a lot of bare leg. He came up behind her, wrapped his good arm around her, and pulled her against him, wishing he wore shorts so he could feel her smooth skin.

She reached past him, slid a plate onto the counter, and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body against him. He felt a flicker of excitement and wondered how she did it. He only had to be in the same room and he got aroused. She pushed away, laughing, shoving her hair back from her face. "I guess you are glad to see me."

Her laughter stopped abruptly when she saw his torn and bloody shirt. "Oh, Joe. What now?" The caretaker in her studying his face, insisting that he sit.

He wanted to stay pressed up against her. "I'm okay," he said. "Don't baby me."

She folded her arms and stepped back. "Is that what I was doing?"

Excitement to acrimony in a few short sentences. "Please," he said. "Let's not fight. We haven't got a lot of time."

"No. I don't suppose you have. Not even enough for a phone call to let me know what happened."

"No," he agreed. "Not even enough for that. Case like this, we've got so much on the line. People get hysterical. Jobs are at risk. It's real heavy going." He wasn't used to discussing his work with anyone who wasn't on the job. He wasn't doing this well, didn't know how to do it better. "We went to execute a search warrant. The guy ran. I went after him. He came at me with a sickle."

She let her breath out with a sigh. "You get him?"

"No. Then I go to get stitched up and find a reporter in my face, accusing me of stealing meth from an evidence locker."

"That's ridiculous. Everyone knows you're a straight arrow. How many stitches?"

"I'm not sure. Twenty, maybe?"

"I don't get it." She reached back absently and undid her barrette, letting her hair fall free. "They spoil your vacation. You get attacked and need twenty stitches, and they're still making you work? How can they do that?"

"Not they, Chris, me. I'm making me work."

She looked down at the counter, intent on unwrapping a platter. "I knew that. I just don't understand. Why can't you take a break, let someone else do it?"

"Someone else is Terry, and you know what shape he's in. Terry, Stan, and Vince. I'm not the only one going at this hard. That's how these things are. You just keep working it 'til something breaks or it's so clear nothing's going to break that you lower the intensity."

"There are other detectives." She abandoned the platter and came over to him, pulling his head into her chest. "But none of them are you, I know. I just hate to see you hurt. Not," Her voice dropped to a whisper, "...that it seems to slow you down."

"Let's forget about dinner." He stood up, taking her hand, remembered Kyle had come home with him. "Where are Terry and Michelle?"

"In the bedroom."

"Our bedroom?" She nodded. Pleased he'd said 'our.' "That means they've got our air conditioner."

She held onto his hand, pressing her hip against him. "We've got a guestroom."

He pressed back, suddenly wanting her so much he could have pulled her right down onto the kitchen floor. "Just thinking we might want to bring a fan."

"I'm your biggest fan," she said. "I just wish you'd remember it."

Afterwards, showered and dressed, he found Chris and Michelle on the back porch, Michelle pink and pretty in a short blue sundress. Chris was pulling a steak off the grill. A feast was spread out on the table. "Where's Terry?"

"In the shower," Michelle said. She looked down at her feet, curling her bare toes under in embarrassment. "I'm sorry about... uh... taking your room. That was rude." Her toes curled tighter. Her cheeks got pinker. "I just thought he needed something alive and good." She looked up at him, then, her lower lip caught between her teeth. "To know I still wanted him. That even if he's gone through a black patch, we've got more than a fair weather thing."

"What are friends for?"

"In your case, everything."

Terry came out, barefoot and smiling, followed by Chris with the phone. "It's Stan." She handed it over, adding, "Whatever it is, you're not leaving until you eat."

Like Michelle, she wore blue. It was nice with her honey brown hair. Everything about her seemed nice just now. The restorative powers of sex. He'd pushed his black mood away, gotten a little of his balance back. And drained off the last of his energy. He took the phone. "Yeah?"

"Dispatch got a call from a car rental place out at the airport. Guy came in a while ago, tried to rent a car with cash. Got real upset when they told him he needed a card. Said he'd forgotten his, he'd be back in an hour. Description matches Osborne. I'm sitting on the place." Perry gave the details. "Get here when you can."

"You call Vince?"

"Not yet."

"I'll call him. Get whoever's around to call the other places. He might be too spooked to come back there."

"I'm on it."

Burgess terminated the call. He and Kyle tore into their steaks like lions at a kill, hugged the kind ladies in blue, and headed back into the fog. He didn't think Osborne would be back, but they had to check it out.

Chapter 24

"You want me to drive?" Kyle asked. It was six of one, half a dozen of the other, Burgess figured, handing over the keys. They were both walking wounded. He got in the passenger seat, reclined it, and shut his eyes. "Wake me when we're close," he muttered.

Drive was hardly the word for what they were about to do. As darkness fell in, the fog had deepened until they couldn't see twenty feet in front of them. It wasn't so much driving as an act of faith. Time was tight and they couldn't hurry. The only comfort was that Osborne would be slowed, too.

These were hard times to be a child. Not just Timmy Watts, but Andrea Dwyer's abused little boy, lured in and violated by Jeffrey Osborne, and Neddy and Nina Mallett, who'd watched their father kill their mother. His own childhood had been hard, but there had been neighbors and community. Kids could wander the neighborhood safely and go to the store for bread and milk without worrying about gangs, guns, or predators. He thought of Yeats's "Second Coming." It seemed, indeed, that a blood-dimmed tide was loosed, that innocence was being drowned.

"Did you know you're making a weird humming sound?" Kyle said.

"It's anger."

"I'll drink to that," Kyle said, "Of course these days, I'll drink to anything."

"Our father's legacy. It's about all mine gave me. That and my temper."

"I didn't get a temper."

"Bullshit. You're just using it on yourself instead of where it belongs. On Wanda. Osborne. Taylor. The entire Watts family. You wanna pull out of that slump, get mad about this case. Get mad for Timmy Watts. You're a dad, for God's sake. Use that."

The fog thinned as they got away from the coast. As soon as staying on the road didn't require all his concentration, Kyle hit the radio and found a country station, a man singing that he should have been a cowboy. "This stuff's our lives in a nutshell, Joe," he said. "You think I made the wrong career choice? Maybe I should have been a cowboy."

"I'm sleeping."

"You want it off?"

"Nah. I can sleep through anything." He closed his eyes again, his body surging toward sleep like a vacuum was sucking him in. He slipped over the edge into numbness.

Numb for maybe ten minutes. He woke abruptly when Kyle jammed on the brake, nearly putting both of them through the windshield.

"Fuckin' skunk in the road," Kyle said. "I'm not driving with that in the car the rest of the night."

"Night, hell. The rest of your life. Except it's my car, my life. I don't think they wash cars in tomato juice when they tangle with skunks."

"V-8," Kyle said. "Cop cars likeV-8."

"I was young, I used to like a big V-8 myself. Boy could you leave rubber with one of those babies."

"You're dating yourself," Kyle said.

"I feel dated. Antique. Ready for an overhaul, a new trannie, retirement."

"Weren't you just in for a Jiffy-lube?" Kyle swung suddenly to the curb and shut off the engine. They were at the airport. Kyle parked so they could see the front of the terminal, the row of rental car agencies, and they got out. It might be an international airport, but this time of night, with the fog socked in, flights would be canceled or delayed, and you could probably have safely grazed cattle on the runway. Grazing seagulls were a bigger problem. That and drivers so disconcerted by landing planes as they dipped low over the highway that they ran into things and each other.