The Angel of Knowlton Park (34 page)

When Melia came in, his shirt was fresh, his suit was clean, but he looked like he hadn't slept. He dropped into a chair and closed his eyes. "Get this. Osborne and his lawyer actually thought if he passed the poly we'd cut him loose. We need to do Taylor's place. Can one of you..."

Stan hit his buzzer and won that round. The kid. He and Kyle could barely find their hands.

"Where do you want to go with this, Joe?"

"Lotta places," Burgess said. "Talk to Dawn Watts's brother, the guy who threatened Dwayne. See if anyone in that neighborhood knows who The Witch is. Reinterview that kid, McBride, and have a talk with his mother. Talk to the other kids Timmy played with, see if anyone knows who might have given him that ride to see Iris. Keep working on that damned blue car. Find the missing meth. Find the missing Martin brothers."

"Several people in the neighborhood saw Ricky Martin around on Friday. No one knows where he's staying," Perry said. "He and Jason are supposedly living in a trailer somewhere, only no one in the Watts household can recall the address or the phone number." He picked at his bandage. Caught Burgess's eye. "Effin' itch is driving me crazy." He returned to Martin. "You guys read his file? He's one sick puppy. Sounds like he's been trying to screw anything that moves since he was 13. It sucks, you know? Rape a woman, plead it down, you're out on the street before the paperwork's done."

"Think he'd kill his own brother?"

"Half-brother," Kyle said.

Perry shook his head. "His PO said nothing Ricky Martin did would surprise him. Only things that surprised him were letting Martin out for fu—" A quick glance at Melia. "For good behavior, if you can believe it—and that he hasn't been rearrested. And no, his PO has no idea where he is."

"So we see if we can find Martin. Interview Henry Devereau, Dawn Watts's brother, the one who was fighting with Dwayne. Talk to the people who made complaints to social services. Find the woman who was driving the blue car. And pray for a break."

"Sounds about right," Melia said. "Split it up anyway you want. And Joe, can you get together with Dwyer about putting Osborne in a line-up for her kid?" His eyes stayed closed, his voice distant. Another minute and he'd be asleep.

"Will do," Burgess said softly. They waited. Melia's breathing got slower. Slower. He was gone. Quietly, they left the room.

They grabbed an empty interview room and divvied up the work. "We got a bunch of people who contacted social services about Timmy. Most of the neighbors we've talked to, except this Regina McBride. His teacher. Plus a doctor who treated him, thought he was being abused. And his former social worker. And there's Mother Watts's brother."

Kyle took the social worker, the doctor, and the family near the park whose kids had played with Timmy. When he finished Taylor's apartment, Perry would try the teacher and keep looking for the Martin brothers. See the good folks at K-mart. Burgess got Henry Devereau and Regina McBride. When he finished, he'd swing by and visit Julie Gordon.

"You ever connect with Lloyd Watts?" Burgess asked.

Perry nodded. "Total blank. The Martins are slimy but smart. Watts are just slimy."

There was a knock on the door. The team heading out to Taylor's place, looking for Perry. He kicked back his chair and headed for the door.

"Hold on. When shall we three meet again?" Kyle asked.

"When the hurly-burly's done, when the battle's lost and won." Burgess said.

"What the fuck?" Perry said.

Kyle, sprawled in his chair like a long-limbed scarecrow, grinned. "Fair is foul, and foul is fair. Hover through the fog and filthy air."

"It fits, doesn't it?" Burgess agreed.

"You guys are crazy," Perry said.

"You'd remember Shakespeare, too, if the nuns had beaten it into you with a ruler," Kyle said.

"Crazy," Perry repeated.

Burgess pushed back, too, and hauled himself to his feet. He felt crazy. Crazy with impatience and irritation. Crazy to go make something happen. Crazy to find one witch, if not three. And one crime scene. "Stay in touch, okay. Either of you get something, anything, call me."

Chapter 26

Charlene Farrell waited outside the door, her blonde cheerleader cuteness wilted by the heat. She followed him to his car, her heels clicking loudly across the brick court and the cement of the parking garage. "Detective Burgess," she said. Rushing had left her breathless and her voice was small and squeaky. "I understand that Jeffrey Osborne's attorney is filing a police brutality complaint against you, stating that you continued to beat his client after the man was handcuffed. Is it true?"

He turned so suddenly she nearly ran right into him. "Is what true?"

"That you hit Osborne after he was in custody and handcuffed?"

"After he was handcuffed, Osborne continued to be violent. He bit and kicked the arresting officers, rammed them with his head, and attempted to escape. What do you think we should have done?"

"But did you hit him?" she repeated, ignoring his question. He reached the car and opened the door. "You really should talk to me," she said. "Tell your side of the story."

"My side of the story is well documented in my reports," he said. "There were several officers involved in the arrest. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a job to do."

"So do I," she said, refusing to move. "And you're making it very difficult."

Burgess couldn't help smiling. She looked so hot and small and angry, standing there with her pink polished fingernails digging into the silk of her sky blue suit. He didn't envy her cleaning bills. It was bad weather for silk. "Just trying to do my job, Ms. Farrell," he said. "If that means you can't do yours, I'm sorry. Now, if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to close this door. Get the air-conditioning on." He considered himself hard-faced and ugly, but his mother had claimed that he had a disarming smile. Maybe she'd been right. Charlene Farrell stepped back and let him get away. It might have been his smile or that she wanted to try her luck with Terry Kyle, see if Kyle was a softer touch. Kyle brushed her aside like an annoying gnat and didn't even bother to smile.

He decided to take the long ride first, give himself some thinking time, so he headed west to Raymond. The part of 302 he was going to be on was ugly, clotted with motels and strip malls and places catering to the tourists who flocked to the lakes region, but just beyond it, in Naples and Bridgton, was one of the most gorgeous parts of the state. Ranks of soft gray-green hills surrounded sparkling lakes. Today he was so saturated with nastiness and irritation he was tempted to keep driving and lose himself there. He'd done it once. After he'd gone over the desk after Cote and his own department had beaten him senseless, he'd gone directly from the hospital to a camp on one of the lakes.

That time—the Kristin Marks case—he'd given it his all and had felt righteous about blaming others when the case fell apart. This time, no one was slacking off. They were doing the job; they just couldn't seem to get past an epidemic of know-nothings and a lot of bad luck. Cases went like this sometimes. Or was he fooling himself? Had he let his ego, his certainty he was the right man for the job, get in the way? If Kyle were handling it, or another detective, might things be going differently? Would they have found witnesses, turned up better leads?

It was so damned easy to second guess yourself.

Before he got out of range, he tried to reach Dwyer again. She'd left him a voice mail that she needed to talk about the pictures. He left her a message about the line-up. He wondered what she had? Whether it would be the thing that mattered.

He'd called ahead to the Raymond police. It was courtesy, protocol, and common sense. It would be dumb to miss a chance to learn what a local department might know about a subject. Even dumber to go into a dangerous situation without backup, without someone knowing where he was. They'd said someone would meet him.

The ride wasn't soothing. Too many out-of-state drivers doing their usual dumb things—turning without signaling, jamming themselves into traffic when there were no spaces, riding each other's rear ends like life was a game of bumper cars. Despite the stifling heat, there were joggers along the roadside. He didn't get it. Why drive hours to vacation in a beautiful place, and then go jogging along an ugly road next to bumper-to-bumper traffic? There were plenty of nice side roads, less traveled and more scenic. But then, who was he to understand human behavior? He'd only been dealing with its perversities all his life.

Following his directions, he turned onto a side road and spotted a Blazer with a light bar idled along the verge. He pulled in beside it and rolled down his window. The Raymond officer was middle-aged and one size larger than his uniform. He had a bland, easy-going face. Even in Maine there were differences between the small town cop and the city cop. This guy didn't deal with Asian, Somali, and Sudanese gangs, homeless shelters and SROs full of alcoholics, addicts, the marginally socialized and deinstitutionalized, and motorcycle gangs stabbing each other. Didn't have the burden of it etched into the lines of his face.

"Burgess?" he said. "Chip Lavoie. Chief says I better come along with you. This guy you're going to see's got him some temper and he doesn't have much use for law enforcement." His voice was easy, sarcastic, a man who saw life's irony.

"Sounds like the rest of the family."

"We've met most of them, too," Lavoie said. "Guess they don't get on." He eyed Burgess's Explorer with approval, then pointed up the road. "We go up here, coupla miles, hang a left, then a right, and onto a fire road. Just a track, really. He's down the end of that. Got some pretty mean dogs." He pushed his glasses up his nose. "I gotta warn you, Sergeant. He's as likely to shoot you as ask you in." He paused. "Moody, ya know. Don't know if I'm coming along to give him a second target or to drag your ass back after you're shot."

"Thanks a lot." Lavoie's couple miles were more like five, on a road so humped by frost heaves it felt like five miles on a rumble strip. He was grateful when they finally turned off onto dirt. After that, it was a couple more miles before they finally emerged into a clearing at the edge of a small pond and into a typical Maine dooryard. Car parts, tractor parts, miscellaneous chunks of metal, and a partially cannibalized bus rested among rotting stumps in the uncut grass. Someone had made planters out of hubcaps and hung dispirited geraniums along the sagging porch rail.

The back of his neck prickled as he walked up a dirt path toward the house. The steps were punky, and he picked his way up carefully, trying to step where the supporting boards were. He crossed the porch to the door. There was only a screen. The inside door stood open. He peered into the dark interior as he knocked.

"Whatever you're selling, we don't want it."

"I'm not selling anything," he said.

"Don't need to be saved, neither. And don't leave none of your damned litachur on my porch."

"Detective Burgess. Portland Police. I'm looking for Henry Devereau."

"He ain't here."

"Mr. Devereau, I need to ask some questions about your nephew, Timmy Watts."

"I got nothing to say to no cop." Even here by the lake it was hot and the mildew and garbage stink of the place suggested that Dawn Watts's housekeeping skills were hereditary. Chains rattled, toenails scratched, and two Dobermans appeared, drooling with anticipation as they peered at him through the screen.

Burgess wasn't about to sacrifice any more of his bodily integrity to the extended Watts family. "Listen, Devereau," he called. "We can do this the easy way. You call off your dogs, let me in, we talk. Or we can do this with the SWAT team, smoke grenades, and pepper spray. I've got enough to bring you in. I just wanted to hear your side first."

"You ain't got jackshit."

"Got a bunch of witnesses who heard you threaten Dwayne Martin that if he didn't deliver on his promise by Friday something really bad was going to happen. And something real bad happened."

"I got an alibi."

"For what?"

"For that night."

"What night?"

"Saddaday. The night he was killed."

"I think we better talk," Burgess said. "Timmy wasn't killed on Saturday."

"Fuck off. I got an alibi for whenever it was."