Redemption (A Joe Burgess Mystery, Book 3) (24 page)

Burgess slid off his stool. "Come on, Benjy, we're going for a ride."

The old man showed no signs of moving. "Right here's fine," he said. "I got a place not far away. You don't wanna drive me, I can walk there easy."

"What I don't want is any more bullshit, okay?" Burgess said. He felt old and heavy. Exhausted by the effort of holding a lifetime's images of Reggie at arm's length. Sick of being patient and understanding.

Benjy didn't move.

"Come on, Benjy. You were his friend. Something's happened to him and suddenly you want to play 'see no evil?' You're not a goddamned monkey and this is no game. Two days ago, when you're sidling up to me while we're taking a body out of the harbor because you've just got to tell me Maura's worried that Reggie is missing, you didn't say anything about seeing two guys beating on him and forcing him into a truck, did you? You're the fucking witness. How were we supposed to find this out? Read some goddamned tea leaves?"

People were staring again. He waited for a response but the old man wouldn't raise his eyes from the floor. "You're not stupid, Benjy. You had to know what you saw was important."

The old man cringed deeper into his coats, like a turtle retreating into its shell. When he spoke, his voice was muffled by heavy fabric. "Hey, come on, ya know what I said about my brain. How it doesn't remember things when I need them and then remembers later. That's what happened, is all. I wasn't playing games with you. You're a cop, ya know? Why would I?"

Burgess knew a lot of reasons why people played games with cops and had little respect for most of them. With a lifelong friend discarded like human trash—dumped in the ocean the way everybody dumped everything in the ocean and assumed it was out of sight, out of mind—he had little sympathy with Benjy's "I'm afraid" ploy. Man was probably more at risk if the cops didn't know than if they did, because once they knew, there was less value in going after Benjy.

"You're playing games with me now, Benjy. With what you saw and what you'll tell. Now get your coats buttoned, because we're going over to 109 and you're giving a statement."

Benjy still didn't move. Exasperated, Burgess pulled him to his feet. "That's enough. Move it. Some of us would like to get some sleep before it's time to wake up again."

Benjy began his slow shuffle toward the door. As he passed the counter, Magdalena gave another of her wonderful smiles and held out a bag. "Here, Ben," she said. "Another muffin for the road."

Burgess looked back as he steered Benjy toward the door. "Thanks, Maggie," he said. "You're a good person."

That produced another smile. "You, too," she said. "Now you go along, Benjy, and help the sergeant out. No more fooling around. Or next time, there's no muffins for you." She shook a finger at him and Benjy ducked his head.

Burgess trailed him out the door and back to the truck, using his bulk to ensure that the man didn't bolt. He waited until Benjy had fastened his seatbelt, then drove back to 109.

He parked in the dusty garage. The icy cement chill, carried to his bones by tongues of sharp wind, hinted too clearly of the cold months ahead. Not what he wanted to think about tonight. He was getting too old for four or five months of winter.

He put Benjy in an interview room with the muffin and went to set up the tape and check his messages. On his desk was a fat folder with a note clipped to it. Wink's writing. "Here's what came back on that second set of prints, presumptively your Kevin Dugan. This one's a real lulu. Name's Leonard Josephson. Got a sheet like a roll of toilet paper. His specialty is arson."

He picked up the file and scanned it quickly. The guy had a lot of aliases, including, no surprise, Kevin Dugan. And no scruples about burning buildings with people in them. Burgess shivered. Arsonists were scary people. There was something particularly cowardly and ugly about those who set fires. Murder was often a crime of passion or impulse or impaired judgment. Arsonists planned, and their victims, deliberate or collateral, died horribly, often with them sticking around to watch. Was it just coincidence that Dugan had moved in across the hall from Reggie or did he play a role in this?

There was a picture in the file, which he decided to show to Benjy. He also found a note from Kyle, with two pictures attached, which meant Kyle hadn't gone straight home, either. One was a PR shot of Charlie Hazen, the realtor who was interested in Reggie's property. Hazen looked prosperous and affable and very full of himself. The other was of Star Goodall, casting an adoring look up at a man he presumed was her late husband, Nick.

Taking the pictures with him, and adding one of Joey from his own file, he shoved back his chair and went to get Benjy's statement on tape. The muffin was gone, nothing left but a crumpled bag and crumbs on the table. Benjy was wrapped his coats, only a shock of bristly gray hair showing, the gentle sound of snoring rising from the heap of clothing like some shapeless beast slumbered in the chair. Like they always say—the innocent sit nervously waiting to be interviewed; the guilty fall asleep. He shook the old man's shoulder. "Come on, Benjy, rise and shine. Time to go to work."

Benjy took some time to orient himself, shaking his head and fussing with his coats. Finally, he seemed to be ready. Burgess turned on the tape and identified both of them. Then he asked Benjy to go through the story he'd told at Dunkin' Donuts about Reggie's abduction. It was like getting a reluctant mule to plow. Benjy hemmed and hawed and fussed and forgot and did every damned thing he could to try Burgess's patience and avoid saying anything useful. After the better part of an hour, though Burgess dredged up enough patience to qualify for sainthood, he had a tape full of nothing and Benjy whining in the chair.

"What is your problem with giving us an official statement, when you have important information relevant to this investigation?"

Benjy studied his shoes. "I dunno. I guess I don't mind telling you, informal like, seeing as we know each other, but I don't want no official paper, saying that I told you all this."

"Your name's going to be on a paper anyway, Benjy, because I'm going to write up what you told me earlier and put it in the file. What's the difference?"

"I guess, 'cuz if you write it down, it ain't necessarily me that said it, ya know?"

He wanted way too badly to hit the old man and knock him right off his chair. Longed to commit worse elder abuse than he'd chided the guy about in the donut shop. Reggie was dead. Dead and most likely murdered and this man, who'd probably scrounged a thousand cigarettes and at least that many drinks from Reggie, who'd used Reggie repeatedly and for years, abusing his kindness the way pathetic losers did, lacked the guts or decency to come forward and help.

"You're a goddamned mooch, Benjy. Take whatever you can get from anybody—me, Reggie, Maura—yet you won't lift a finger to help us find who killed him."

The old man hunched his shoulders and gathered his coats more tightly around him. "You don't unnerstand, Joe. I just don't wanna be next, is all."

"You're a lot less likely to be next if you talk to us than if you don't, Benjy."

"I gotta look after myself, Joe, ya know? I don't got a cop for a friend, like Reggie did." Idiot's reasoning. Look what having a cop for a friend had done for Reggie.

"You disgust me." He crossed the room and opened the door. "Get the hell out of here before I find some reason to lock you up."

"You ain't gonna drive me home?"

"You bet I'm not." He crossed back to where Benjy sat and scooped up his file. As he did, the pictures spilled out onto the table.

Instead of fastening his coats or getting up to leave, Benjy stared down at the pictures. Then, with a shaky finger, he pointed at one of them. "That's him, Joe. That's the guy from the truck. The one who was arguing with Reggie and then hit him."

Even though it had captured his angry words, Burgess was glad the tape was on. This was something. "The guy you're pointing at calls himself Kevin Dugan. He lived across from Reggie. You ever see him there?"

Benjy shook his head. "Nope. But I hadn't seen Reggie around much lately. Just on the weekends, when he was out with his cart. He kept pretty regular hours during the week because he was workin', ya know? Some of the guys were even complaining about it, 'cuz Reggie was always good for a drink or a smoke. You know how he was. If he had anything, he'd share."

Burgess pointed to the picture resting under Benjy's finger. "This guy, Kevin Dugan, is the one who got out and was arguing with Reggie, then hit him and dragged him into the truck?"

"Yeah. That's him. I'd a knowed that mean face anywhere." Benjy pointed at the man's face. "He's got this scar here under his eye." He tapped the picture with a finger. "This guy and the other one, it took the both of them to drag him into the truck."

"Is this the same guy who came after you and threatened you?"

"Nope." Benjy stabbed at another photograph with a trembling finger. "I think it were him." Burgess looked down to see where Benjy's shaky finger had landed, hoping, with an absurd, protective hope the boy didn't deserve, that he hadn't pointed to a picture of Joey. The gnarled finger was pointing to Star Goodall's husband.

He sank down into a chair, his head in his hands. He'd just wasted hours on a guy who wouldn't cooperate, who after enormous efforts at persuasion finally IDs one person they're looking at, then makes that ID look completely suspect by IDing a dead guy.

Fuck. He kneaded his forehead with his fingers, trying to push away the headache that was building. It wasn't working, so he gave up. "Come on, Benjy," he said, trying to keep his anger and frustration out of his voice. "Time to go home." As he opened the door to let Benjy out, he tried one final question. "You notice anybody else around who might have seen what happened to Reggie?"

Benjy thought long and hard about that one as they stood with the night wind blowing over them, carrying the tangy brine of the sea and the fainter smell of burned leaves. "There was a guy switching out them free papers... you know the ones that are in those boxes? There was a pregnant woman pushing a kid in a stroller. She left real fast when she saw what was happening. And there was one of them Africans. Somali. Sudanese. I can't tell them apart, myself. But you see him around a lot. Scary-looking fella with scars on his face?"

Benjy bobbed his head, as though he was having some secret internal conversation with himself. "He was sitting in a car parked in front of the building where I was watchin' from? He's so big, that guy, he coulda done something if he wanted. But he never does nothing for nobody, Joe. He's always just watching."

Another bob of his head as Benjy said, "When that big guy came and warned me off, he didn't even look around to see if anyone else was watchin', so I don't think he even saw the guy in the car. Guy sure saw him, though. I was watchin' those eyes, all white and wild in that dark face, and they followed him back to the truck and until they were out of sight. Then he started up his car and drove away."

"You notice what kind of car?"

"Old Mustang. Sixty-seven or eight. Baby blue. Cherry," Benjy said, limping off toward the garage. "You take care, Joe. I'll let ya know if I remember anything else."

Burgess went back upstairs to do a search on old Mustangs registered in the city.

Chapter 18

His eyes felt gritty as he stared at the screen. There were an awful lot of old Mustangs in the city. He sighed as he hit print and shoved the printout into his already bulging file. This could wait 'til morning. He didn't do anyone any good if he let himself get so bleary from lack of sleep he couldn't function. In the morning, he'd get Stan to track down the free paper delivery man. He headed for the door, leaving the detective's bay to one lonely man in a corner speaking softly into a phone, and Detective June Barlow with her crazily uncombed hair, staring with tired red eyes at her terminal. Such an exciting life. No wonder everyone wanted to be a cop.

He was almost out the door when a thought sent him back. He'd taken it on faith, listening to Star Goodall's dramatic story of losing her husband, that her husband
was
dead. He'd believed her, but he hadn't checked, and that was careless. The rule of investigation was trust, then verify. He'd never forgive himself if he compromised Reggie's case because he hadn't bothered to check basic facts. He knew she was manipulative and dishonest.