Radiant Days (24 page)

I walked toward the emergency crew, feeling as though my blood had been replaced with helium, and saw a figure on the ground, motionless. My entire body went cold as I ran the last few steps. The cop glanced at me as the crew arrived with the
stretcher. They began tossing things onto the ground—an oxygen tank, tubes, and blankets.

I halted, staring at the man beside the canal. He lay on his back, one arm flung out, his flannel shirt pulled up to expose his chest, white and slack as a deflated balloon.

“Ted.” For a moment I thought it was someone else talking.
“Ted!”

One of the ambulance crew turned to me and shouted, “Get her out of here!”

Someone grabbed my arm. “Come on, get out of the way!”

“No.” I tried to pull away, found myself staring at a cop. “You can’t! You—that’s
Ted
.”

The cop looked over his shoulder at the jogger. “Just hang on a minute, okay?” He turned back to me. “Were you with him last night?”

“What?” I shook my head, dazed.

A second cop came up behind the first. “Get back to the guy who found him. I’ll talk to her.” He stared at me, a man about my father’s age, with close-cropped hair and a black mustache. The badge on his uniform jacket read
PIERI
. He inclined his head toward the crowd of EMTs and police surrounding Ted. “How do you know this guy?”

I stared at him blankly. Finally I stammered, “Ted Kampfert—that’s Ted Kampfert.”

Officer Pieri nodded. “That’s right. Homeless guy, lives
on the street.” He gave me a quick once-over, and I realized that, with my filthy clothes and frayed blanket, I looked like I’d been living on the street as well. “Were you with him last night?”

“Last night?” I repeated stupidly. The first cop joined us, trailed by the jogger. I turned to see the EMTs kneeling around Ted. They lifted him, with as little effort as though he were a child, and placed him on the stretcher. I looked back at Officer Pieri. “Is he—is he okay?”

Annoyance faded into a sort of resigned pity, and he shook his head. “No. They pronounced him dead a few minutes ago.”

“No! They can’t—he was
fine
!”

The jogger gave me a sympathetic look. “A lot of the kids around here knew him,” he said to Officer Pieri. “He’d buy them beer and cigarettes. He was some kind of street musician. I saw him all the time, that’s why I thought he was sleeping first time I ran by. Second time, though, he just didn’t look right.”

I stared through my tears at the man on the stretcher. He looked smaller and frailer, as though he’d aged decades in one night. As the crew bore the stretcher up toward the ambulance, I saw a few things littering the ground where he’d lain—cigarette butts, brown paper bags, a white plastic bucket. His fishing rod and guitar case.

And something else, a shapeless brown object that still bore the imprint of where his head had rested.

My satchel.

Before Pieri could stop me, I darted off, dropped to the ground, and grabbed it, my heart pounding as I flung it open.

There were my bundled drawings; my sketchbooks and oil pastels and watercolors; the cracked plastic box of brushes and
pencils; my palette and notebooks and gum erasers. I remembered the note tacked to the ladder on his boat.

Had to go find something that got lost
.

“Hey!” A hand closed around my shoulder and pulled me to my feet. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Hand that over—”

“It’s mine.” I hugged it to my chest. “Two kids stole it from my house!”

“What house? You live here?” Officer Pieri eyed me skeptically.

“No—Northeast. Brookland.”

“What’s your name?”

“Merle Tappitt.”

“Merle Tappitt.” He regarded me for a long moment. “You were with him yesterday, down by the river. The kid who’s been painting that stuff all over town. Radium something.”

“Radiant Days,” I said automatically, then winced.

“Right, Radiant Days. I never heard of a girl doing that kind of stuff. Graffiti. I thought you must be a guy.” He held out his hand. “Okay, Merle. Hand me that bag, please.”

“But it’s mine!”

“We’ll determine if it’s yours or not. Right now, you need to come with me to the station house.” I started to argue but he cut me off, waving over another cop. “I want to ask you some questions and try to figure out what happened here. Mind emptying your pockets?”

I handed him my bag, defeated, and turned my pockets inside out as he watched. They were empty, save for the change purse
and fish-bone key. Officer Pieri examined the key, then handed it back.

“You said Ted was fine? Well, as you saw, he’s not fine now. I want you to come and answer some questions about Ted. We’ll determine who this purse belongs to. And it’ll be warmer at the station, I can promise you that,” he added, gesturing at the blanket draped around my shoulders. “How old are you, Merle?”

“Eighteen.”

“Eighteen.” His walkie-talkie crackled again. He turned away and spoke into it, signed off, and took my elbow. “Okay, Merle. Let’s go.”

He guided me up the sidewalk toward the street. A few people had gathered near the ambulance, craning their necks as the crew bundled the stretcher into the back. The crowd stared as Pieri escorted me to the patrol car, as though I might be a criminal, the kind of teenager who would kill a homeless man. I avoided their eyes and slid into the back of the cruiser. Officer Pieri slammed the door after me and got into the front seat. I pressed my face against the window while he called in to the station, watching as the ambulance pulled away in silence.

Washington, D.C.

OCTOBER 9, 1978

AT THE POLICE
station, exhaustion and grief overcame me, and I got the dry heaves. Officer Pieri had me put my head between my legs until I felt better, then made me recite the alphabet backward and take a Breathalyzer test.

“What day is it?” he asked.

I hesitated. “Monday?”

“What month and date?”

I thought of Arthur, a moon turning from crescent to full in a single night. “October ninth? Um, 1978,” I added for good measure.

“You don’t sound too sure of that.” Officer Pieri leaned back in his swivel chair. “Did you take anything, Merle? Any drugs?”

“No. I don’t do any of that stuff.”

“Well, good for you,” he said drily. He reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and retrieved a brown paper bag, opened it, and handed me an orange and a sandwich wrapped in plastic.
“You like tuna fish? You look like you could use a bite.”

I tried not to wolf it down while Pieri stepped into the hall, returning with a paper cup of water.

“Here,” he said. “Don’t make yourself sick. So what were you doing with Ted there yesterday by the river?”

“Nothing. Just hanging out. Talking.”

“Talking about what?”

“I dunno. Art. Painting, music, stuff like that.” I ate as he recorded my answers onto various forms. After a few minutes I tentatively asked, “Do they know what happened?”

Officer Pieri finished filling out a sheet and set his pen down. “They’ll run toxicology tests and do an autopsy. Probably he died of exposure. Or liver failure. Acute alcohol poisoning. It could have been anything.” He sighed. “Ted had his issues.”

“You knew him?”

Pieri nodded. “Sure. I used to keep an eye on him, make sure he got something to eat when I could. Tried to get him to go to a shelter, but he always seemed to have someplace he’d disappear to. Maybe he went to his brother’s; I don’t know.” He twisted his chair to gaze at the wall, his expression sorrowful. “I saw him and his band once. Back when I was in college, they did a show in Trenton. Best live concert I ever saw, even better than the Stones. They played for four hours and when they were done a bunch of us followed them into the parking lot, stayed out all night with a case of Rheingold. Ted and his brother got a couple of acoustic guitars out of their van and sang—we all sang.” He shook his head. “Everyone stole from Ted. You’re too young
to know about that, but it’s true. Bob Dylan, Neil Young, that guy Tom Waits. Bruce Springsteen. All of ’em. He was the best damn guitarist in the world. It broke my heart to see him out on the street, but some people, they just decide what they’re gonna do and there’s nothing you can say to change that. You ever see him play?”

“Just last night. On M Street.”

Officer Pieri continued to stare at the wall for another minute. Finally he swiveled around again and picked up another form. “Did you have any other contact with him? Did you see anyone else who was with him?”

When he finished questioning me about Ted, he pulled another sheaf of papers from a drawer and began asking about how my bag had been stolen. I told him what I knew, but didn’t mention Errol’s name. There was no point in getting a twelve-year-old in trouble. All I wanted was to get my bag back.

“How did Ted Kampfert come to have your purse?” Pieri tapped his pen against the desk. “You said some kids took off with it in Northeast yesterday. How’d it show up with Ted this morning?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

“You have any ID on you?” I shook my head. “What about inside the bag? No? Can you describe its contents for me?”

I rattled off everything I could think of. Pieri opened the bag and rummaged inside. At last he closed it, set it on the desk, and pushed it across to me.

“Okay, Merle. Looks like this belongs to you.”

“Thank you.” I took the satchel and held it on my lap. “Is it okay if I go?”

“Not yet. Your graffiti—you know that’s a crime, right? Vandalism, defacing government property. I should give you a summons right now.” I started to say something but he cut me off. “Now I shouldn’t do this, but you seem like a nice girl—like I said, I thought some guy was putting those up everywhere. Radiant Days.” He sat musing, then leaned across the desk to stare at me pointedly. “You’ve got some real talent. Why are you wasting it on graffiti?”

“Maybe it’s not wasted.” I stared back. “Maybe it’s just different.”

“Different?” He sighed. “Well, Merle, I better not catch you again being different in my district, okay? Hold on—”

A light on his phone blinked. He punched it, picked up the receiver, and listened before setting it back in the cradle. “There’s someone here who wants to talk to you. Robert Kampfert—he’s Ted Kampfert’s brother.”

“What?”

“He’s next of kin; he just arrived from the hospital. Someone at the front desk told him you were with Ted last night. Would you be willing to talk to him?”

My expression must have indicated clearly that I was not. Officer Pieri hesitated, then said, “You don’t have to, Merle. But it would be the kind thing to do.”

I stared at my bag, and nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

Officer Pieri escorted me to a small room with flickering
fluorescent lights, pointed to one of two battered metal chairs, and said, “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

I waited. The door had a glass window with wire mesh in it. There was a poster that demonstrated the Heimlich maneuver, and a dead cockroach on the floor beneath. After a few minutes Officer Pieri returned with a middle-aged man dressed in jeans and a beat-up leather jacket. His eyes were red, his dark hair uncombed.

“Merle, this is Rob Kampfert, Ted’s brother.” Officer Pieri showed him into the room. “I’ll be across the hall in my office. Just tell me when you’re done.”

He stepped out, leaving the door open. The man looked down at me, then settled in the other chair. “You’re Merle?”

I nodded. He looked like Ted, but younger, his hair brown and graying around his temples. His eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses were dark brown, not amber.

But they were deep-set, like Ted’s, and while his face wasn’t weathered by exposure, he had the same deep grooves beside his mouth, and the same pattern of creases when he at last gave me a tight, unhappy smile. Under his worn leather jacket he wore a flannel shirt, newer and cleaner than Ted’s. He smelled strongly of cigarette smoke. He looked drained and heartbroken, and when he talked, he sounded almost exactly like Ted, his voice deep and gravelly.

“Well, Merle, I’m Rob.”

He stuck out his hand. I took it and he held it for a few seconds before dropping it. He looked like he had no idea what to do or say next. He glanced at my face, then at the bag in my lap. He
cleared his throat and asked in that rasping voice, “Someone out there told me you were with Ted last night?”

“Yeah.”

Rob sighed and ran a hand through his graying hair. “Look, I’m not here to interrogate you or anything. I know Ted bought kids booze, but I don’t give a rat’s ass if he bought you the whole goddamn bar, okay? I just want to know if he was all right. What he did, was he having fun. Was he happy, what was he doing, you know? We—we hadn’t talked in a while.” His voice cracked, but his gaze remained fixed on me. “That’s all I care about, Merle. So …”

I shrugged, miserably. I couldn’t tell him what really happened. But I had to tell him something.

“No, he was fine,” I said. “I mean, we just kind of hung out, me and—”

I checked to make sure Officer Pieri wasn’t listening. “Me and a friend,” I went on softly. “Someone I just met last night. We were walking along M Street late and Ted was there playing his guitar for people and we hung out and listened to him.” I paused. “His guitar—he was amazing.”