The Angel of Knowlton Park (39 page)

"You already have..." She looked for the pitcher and glass, found neither, and frowned as she checked his chart. "I'm sorry, Detective," she said. "I'll be right back."

She closed the door just as Hamlin was saying, "...spent six freakin' months undercover working on this, Burgess. Six months lying and cheating my way into their hearts, getting in place, getting connected and in one night you blunder into the middle of it and send the whole works sky high."

He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "You knew about this?"

"Sure."

"You knew the cookers were the Martin brothers?" Hamlin nodded. "You read the papers, right, Hamlin, so you must have known the dead boy was Jason and Ricky Martin's brother?"

"So?"

"I thought you said you were a cop?" Why waste time on this when talking hurt so much? "It never crossed your mind that when someone gets killed, cops talk to the family? That we were bound to show up there and ask some questions?"

"Never thought you'd blow the place up."

"I didn't..." Burgess began, then changed tack. "You knew that trailer was a ticking bomb?" Hamlin was silent. "Knew or suspected. You tell the local cops what was going on, in case one of them accidentally walked in there, like one did a couple weeks ago serving an eviction notice? If he'd been blown sky high, would you have considered him stupid and interfering with your investigation? Or is that just me?"

"We don't go around warning people," Hamlin said. "That's not how it works. That's what undercover's all about. Secret."

"I know. One clandestine group going after another. You guys are playing cops and robbers while I try to protect the public from both of you."

"Oh, stuff it, Burgess. You've worked undercover. You know how it is."

"I know," Burgess agreed. "But do you?"

The nurse came back with his water, poured him a glass, and gave him a small cup with medication. "Chris is outside," she said. "You want to see her?"

From her tone, he deduced Chris was not in a state of sweetness and light. "Sure," he said.

Chris came no closer than the foot of the bed, squaring off with her hands on her hips, ignoring Hamlin. "I don't know which of us is the bigger ass," she said.

"I've got the bigger ass," he said.

She almost smiled. "That's not what I meant."

"What did you mean?" Days when he longed for conversation, everyone was silent; days like this, when he longed for silence, everyone wanted to talk. Life was all about timing, wasn't it?

"You don't know?"

"Please," he said. "I don't know if I could feel worse, but a game of twenty questions just might do it. You want to yell at me, go ahead, but don't make me guess why you're so mad. It's not like I did this because I enjoy getting poisoned and blown ass over teakettle."

"I'm not talking about this." She waved a hand dismissively. "Seems like you get bashed all to hell just about daily."

He hadn't had so much as a scratch in months. "If you're not complaining because I make you worry, what's the problem?" His voice was a whisper dragged over gravel.

"You really don't know?"

"I'm a hell of a detective, but I don't read minds."

"Terry told Michelle you quit the case."

That brought him off the pillow with a roar they must have heard at headquarters. "He said what?" Her hand flew to her chest in such a perfect imitation of an affronted dowager he would have laughed if her statement hadn't been so outrageous. If laughing didn't hurt so much. "Come on, Chris, you know better. I don't quit."

Her hands dropped to her sides and she stared at him, tears filling her eyes. "I didn't want to believe it, Joe, but Terry said..." Her shoulders rose and fell. "I couldn't imagine you abandoning that little boy. That's not like you. But Terry said..."

"You talk with Terry?" She shook her head. "So you don't know what Terry said, only what Michelle said. It's like some goddamned game of gossip."

What—had he thought her visit would make him feel better? Some days, he couldn't win. And he knew winning was important. Burgess was captain of the team that played for the dead. If they lost, the bad guys won. It made him a very bad loser. "I haven't heard I'm off the case." He jerked his chin toward Hamlin. "He says I am."

Chris turned her sharp eyes on Hamlin, settling her hands back on her hips. She wasn't a big woman, but she had an imposing physical presence. And she'd spent enough time with death and tragedy that she didn't mince words. "Why would you want him off the case? You know he's the best. Everyone knows he's the best."

Hamlin shrugged. "Not my call."

"Who are you, anyway?" she demanded. "What are you doing here?"

"MDEA, ma'am," he said. "Debriefing the detective about last night."

"Do you mind waiting outside? I need to do a little debriefing myself."

"Excuse me, ma'am," he said, "but I was here first."

Burgess loved the way her back stiffened and her head came up. "Suit yourself," she said. "Just don't get in my way." She went out to the hall, returning with a small suitcase and a stack of paperwork. "They're letting you go, but only because I promised you'd get skilled nursing care. If you don't mind my saying so, you do look a bit the worse for wear." She peeled down the covers, looking with dismay at his swollen knee, bandaged shoulder, the masses of bruises and abrasions. "I try to believe that love conquers all, but sometimes you challenge my beliefs."

"Never runs smooth," he agreed.

"Be quiet," she said. "I'm figuring out how to dress you without hurting you."

"You're a nurse. You're used to hurting people."

"You're so kind, Joe."

"Try to be." He shot a glance at Hamlin. "When I'm not blowing people up."

"Don't even joke about it. It must have been terrible."

"It was."

She had him up, dressed, and heading toward the door when Melia arrived, clean-shaven, shoes shined, tie knotted perfectly, looking like hell and wearing his bad news face.

Burgess let him get through the preliminaries, delivered a succinct assessment of his condition, and waited. He could have made it easier, but he didn't feel much like being a good sport if he was being booted off the team.

Finally, Melia said, "Got some bad news, Joe. Cote's taken you off the case."

They were standing about four feet apart, close enough for Burgess to see the tic in Melia's eye he got when he was exhausted. Burgess watched it twitch. "What are the terms? Am I suspended? Driving a desk? Banished to Siberia? Do I need a lawyer?" Melia didn't answer. "Is he actually accusing me of taking that meth? Does he seriously believe I used excessive force on Osborne? You know the meth thing's bullshit, and I had half-a-dozen witnesses with Osborne."

"He wants you to take a couple days of sick leave, so technically, you're not suspended. Yet. Kyle's replacing you. Paul was very clear that he doesn't want you bothering them. What he does about the meth, I can't say, but I don't think he's got any grounds to accuse you. Same with Osborne." Melia shrugged. "It wouldn't hurt to talk to a lawyer."

So he still had his badge and his gun. As for not talking with Kyle and Perry, far as he knew, Cote hadn't repealed the First Amendment.

"You going to be okay with this?"

This from the guy who'd made him cancel his vacation to take the case. "No, I'm not going to be okay with this. This isn't about deference to rank, or obedience, or protecting the integrity of the police department. This is about a pitifully neglected and vulnerable little boy who was raped and slaughtered. You saw it. Cote speaks for the department, but who speaks for Timmy Watts?"

What the hell? Why not say what he was thinking? It was no secret how he felt. "Cote's a miserable excuse for a man at the best of times, but this is truly disgraceful. I'm ashamed to be a member of a department that puts personal animosity before the interests of that child." Hubris or not, dammit, it was how he felt.

There was something else at stake here that mattered terribly. His honor. His reputation. He didn't mind having a reputation as fierce and zealous, even mean if it represented dedication to his job. He'd given his life to this department. All he asked in return was the chance to do his job with dignity and honor. Being taken off an investigation after his name was linked with missing drugs and excessive force charges tarnished him. Even if he was never formally accused, let alone charged with anything, the damage would be done.

"You know what he's doing to me, Vince. He could stop right here, never take it a step farther, and I'd still be damaged goods. I can't sit still for that."

Melia met his eyes, too honest to back away from the truth, but he didn't speak. There was nothing to say.

Burgess felt his self-control unraveling. He grabbed the bed rail, as though by squeezing tightly enough, he could force his anger back down. "Dammit, Vince. This isn't the time to take me off the case. We can break it.
Are
breaking it. We just need time. I don't need to tell you, we don't find this guy and he thinks he's gotten away with it, Timmy Watts will only be the first."

Finally saying aloud what he'd sensed from the moment they unwrapped the body—that a blood lust had been kindled which would, with time, rekindle. A child killer was loose in his city and they were telling him to stay out of it. He thought they asked too much.

"Kyle and Perry know everything you know, Joe? You're not holding back?"

Insult to fucking injury. Like he was some grandstander looking to be a media hero? He wasn't going to dignify that insult with an answer. He released the bed rail and let his anger take him.

"I'm going home, Vince. I'm sick. Sick of trying to do a job no one gives a damn about. Little piece of welfare trash like Timmy Watts doesn't really matter, does he? There's always another. You're the one who dragged me into this, remember? You can't ask me to take it on, ask me to change my plans, Chris's plans, because I'm the only guy who can do this, then tell me to take it off, like Timmy Watts's murder is no more than a tee-shirt. Like I've got nothing invested in this. Next time you get a dead kid, Vince, call somebody else."

Melia looked like he'd been struck. Burgess didn't care. Standing in a hospital in the middle of a summer Monday, going through the motions of a normal person, he was falling down into a black pit. All the rage and despair he'd been holding off since he'd gotten Melia's call about a dead child was sucking him down into the place inhabited by the spirits of the dead. Their small, keening voices rose to meet him as he fell.

Burgess nodded at Chris and they walked out the door.

Chapter 30

"It's a chance to get some down time," she said uncertainly, starting the car.

"Why would I want some down time?" He tried not to act as mean and vile as he felt, knowing it wasn't her he was mad at. She looked tired. Maybe she hadn't slept, worrying about him. She had wonderful balance, but she was a serious person. His immersion in this case, their canceled vacation, and his distance had to make her wonder if being involved with him made sense.

"You looked in a mirror lately?" she said.

"I rarely look in mirrors. You haven't noticed?"

"So you're going to be a rotten prick, even to me?"

He tried a couple of those BS calming breaths, but they only hurt his lungs. "Chris, I'll try. But I think... I know... the next couple days'll be bad. I'm gonna be a rotten prick even to me." Regardless of what he'd said to Melia, he was no more ready to quit this case than to tap dance naked down Cumberland Avenue. Not while the inside of his head was papered with pictures of Timmy Watts's body.

"That Cote. I'd like to stick an ice pick in that bastard's ear," she said. "Pith him like a frog and stop his moronic meddling once and for all. I can't believe he's doing this to you."

"He's been living for this moment for years."

"Well, it would be hard for anyone to deal with what you did, especially when everyone knows he deserved it."

"I'd do it again."

"Maybe that's why he's locked you out."

"He's locked me out because he's too short-sighted and stuck on himself to recognize this is about a dead kid. It's because he's locked me out that I feel like doing it. Look, let's not talk about it, okay. The more I think about him, the madder I get."