Redemption (A Joe Burgess Mystery, Book 3) (5 page)

"You ask her why she thought that?"

"I tried, sir." Robeck shuffled his black shoes on the floor. "She said she and Reggie, they usually had sex on Fridays. That was their day. And she'd gotten herself all fixed up and then Reggie didn't show." The young cop's expression said he found that unlikely.

"Every Friday for at least ten years," Burgess said, "unless Reggie's out of town or one of 'em's drying out or in the hospital. Put in enough time, Robeck, you'll learn. People aren't always what you think they are, and neither are you."

"It's just..." The young officer looked uncomfortable. "That... you know, sir... she didn't look like the type to have an active sex life."

Ah, youth, they always assume they've got a corner on the market. Like sex, particularly inappropriate sex, wasn't the driver behind crimes and misbehavior at all ages.

"Geriatrics have sex lives, Robeck. People with Alzheimer's have sex lives, We've got people bed-hopping in assisted living and nursing homes. Maura and Reggie were a longtime couple. You spend enough time on the street, you'll learn your people. Like those two old guys downstairs? For one thing, they're not old. Jim's about my age, which"—Burgess raised an eyebrow—"contrary to the stories you may have heard about me being in the department since the dinosaurs died out, isn't that old. Chub's a few years younger. Jim was an accountant, had a nice house, nice family. He got injured in a car accident, ended up with chronic pain, started treating it with alcohol. Eventually the bottle swallowed him. There must be some value in him. His ex-wife manages his disability money; daughter bakes for him and does his laundry. He's got pictures of his grandkids in his wallet."

He looked around the room. Not much to see, but in his way, Reggie had made it personal: his special hat on a hook on the back of the door, a photo of a much younger Maura beside the bed. "I'm going to search the room now. Be a big help if you could track down the landlord, tell him we're going to change the lock on this door, seal the room until we know what we're dealing with. Then find me a locksmith, sit on the place 'til he can get here."

"Sure thing, sir." Robeck was eager to leave. "I'll get the information from those guys downstairs. Make the calls from my car, sir, if that's okay. Unless you need me here?"

That was just fine with Burgess. He liked to work alone. He especially wanted to be alone here in Reggie's room, where he could have his own internal conversation with his lost friend, touch Reggie's things without worry about displaying emotion. "I'll call you back when I need you," he said. If there was anything to collect, he wanted to do it before another set of eyes, but he didn't need or want those eyes during his initial search.

Robeck thumped away and Burgess sat down in the chair he'd vacated, slowly running his eyes around the room, not looking for anything particular, just taking it in. There wasn't much to see. A bed with a scarred bed stand holding a few books and a lamp. A small kitchen unit with sink, apartment-sized stove, and under-the-counter refrigerator. Cabinets above for a few dishes and food. A table and two chairs. An easy chair facing a small TV sitting on the dresser. It was all dull and brownish and tired except the thick comforter on the bed, a clean brown and blue stripe.

Burgess had bought him that at the Salvation Army, after Reggie complained about always being cold. The comforter, a couple L.L. Bean fleeces, a pair of brown corduroy pants, and some warm socks. So little he could do. Sit and listen and provide a few creature comforts. If they'd had a strong, clean soul, an orderly mind, or a jar of happiness, he would gladly have bought those as well.

After a bit, having absorbed all the room had to tell him, he slipped on some gloves and began to explore. He started with the bedside table. Matches, a few hard candies, some appointment cards for doctors and social service workers, a number of the appointments recent. No money, not even change. No pay stubs or correspondence. Then he did the dresser drawers. He found a small stash of cash in the pocket of the good corduroy pants. An envelope with some letters from Reggie's brother, Clay, and Reggie's mother. Another fat envelope with papers about his disability. A single black envelope with Reggie's name on it in silver ink, a return address in Falmouth, a name Burgess didn't recognize.

Going through the clothes in the closet took all of five minutes. Not much hanging there except an outdated brown suit, two clean shirts, a ragged flannel bathrobe, and a couple heavy flannel work shirts. Nothing in the pockets. One pair of dusty slippers, some worn athletic shoes, and some work boots. Flip-flops for the communal shower. On the inside of the closet door, an oversized fluffy blue towel. On a hook above, a toiletries kit. On the shelf above the clothes was a cardboard box, tied with string, and a cheap suitcase.

Burgess didn't bother with the box—he knew what lived in there—Reggie's demons. He pulled down the suitcase, set it on the bed, and opened it. Inside were several more of the black envelopes with the silver writing. He picked one up and pulled out the single sheet of paper. There was no greeting and no signature, just a message centered on the page, in elegant handwriting:

You may refuse to admit it, but that doesn't change what you did or how it ruined my life. I will hold you in the black part of my heart always. I will call down curses upon your head and I will wish you ills and demons and destruction every waking moment of my life until someone finally, blessedly, brings me the happy news of your death.

What the heck was this? He thought he knew all about Reggie, but Reggie had never mentioned anyone called Star Goodall or getting these letters. Burgess put it back in the envelope, returned it to the suitcase, and continued to search. This, he knew, was coming back to 109 with him. He finished the room, checking under the mattress, in the bedding, and under the carpet. Inside one of the books he found an envelope with Reggie's name scrawled on it being used as a bookmark, but there was no return address. There was nothing in the refrigerator. No clues, no ice, no food. Ditto the cupboards, which were bare as Old Mother Hubbard's.

It was just so goddamned depressing. A whole life that fit in one miserable suitcase.

Unable to be in the room any longer, he went downstairs to get Robeck instead of calling. Jim and Chub were still passing the bottle back and forth in an amiable way.

"Hey, Joe," Jim said. "Chub's got somethin' to tell you."

Chub mumbled something indecipherable, swiped the back of his hand across his nose, and took another drink.

Burgess leaned down. "What was that, Chub?"

Chub sniffed. "Truck," he said. "What Reggie left in. Weren't no van, it were a truck."

Chapter 3

His phone rang while he and Robeck were collecting items from Reggie's room, Burgess putting them into evidence bags, Robeck making the list. He pulled the phone to his ear. "Burgess."

"Joe, it's Stan. Maura O'Brien's over here at 109 and she wants to know if that's Reggie we pulled out of the harbor this morning. I've got her waiting in an interview room and I haven't said anything. What do you want me to do?"

"Get her a cup of coffee and some food and tell her I'm coming to see her. And Stan?"

"Yeah?"

"Get her something sweet, a pastry or something. Maura's got a serious sweet tooth."

"You bet, Boss. Oh, and just so you'll know. She's way out of it. Took me half an hour to pull that much from her."

Maura was on his list of people to see, but this didn't sound promising. Maura at her best was challenging. Right now, neither of them were at their best. He clicked his phone shut and looked around. They were just about finished. He added Maura's picture to the box. Watched Robeck add it to the list.

"I'll be going then," he said. "Wanna give me a hand getting this down to the car?" He jerked his chin at the suitcase and held out his hand for the list. Robeck grabbed the suitcase, he picked up the box they'd filled and Reggie's box of demons, sealed tight with layers of tape and wrapped repeatedly with twine, and they headed downstairs.

"What's up with the landlord and the locksmith?" It sounded like the title of a song, something Irish and jiggy. Lots of noise and fiddles. Not unlike his life.

"Landlord thought we were asking permission. Tried to get another week's rent for letting us change the lock. I thanked him for his cooperation, told him it was already in process, and I'd see that he got a key as soon as the police were finished with the premises. When he squawked, I asked did he want us to keep a police seal on the door for the next month or so, or was he gonna let us do our job?"

"Well done," Burgess said. This kid had potential. Learning to be in control and stand up to people was part of the job. Don't let 'em push you around, yet be polite enough so they're not banging on the door over at city hall, not calling up some captain to whine. Sometimes it was a hard balance to strike. He'd had a couple once, ran a convenience store, who failed to mention a surveillance tape showing the suspects in an attempted rape because they were holding out for a reward. There were plenty of good people, too, like the kids this morning, but there were a lot of jerks out there. Part of a cop's job was learning to manage the jerks.

He stowed the stuff in his car, left Robeck to wait for the locksmith, and headed back to 109, dreading what lay ahead. Doing notifications—notes, they called them—was a basic part of police work. Like doctors and ministers, cops were society's carriers of bad news. The importance of this job was stressed throughout their training. In the early stages, before the victim's advocate got involved, the detective was the essential liaison between the department and the family. Oftentimes, too, family members were potential suspects, making it a real tightrope walk.

Today, his dread was of another kind. No question Maura counted as family. She was one of the few who had truly cared about Reggie, probably the one, after his brother, Clay, who would be most hurt and grieved by his death. She hadn't seen Reggie—as that bitch down by the waterfront had—as society's detritus, a disposable human being. He'd been her lover and companion. Both of them might have been categorized as losers; both might have drained a whole lot more from society than they contributed, but they had never given up trying to fumble through their fog and pain to live good lives.

But while Maura probably had valuable information, he couldn't be sure anything he said would be received or any of his questions answered. Talking to Maura wasn't easy. Her thought processes and conversations weren't linear. When she took her medicine, Maura could organize her life and hold down a job. But like many of the mentally ill, she hated the tamped-down, fuzzy way medicine made her feel. As soon as she'd been doing better for a while, she'd decide she was fine without it. Then she'd lose her job, start wandering the streets, and Portland PD would be scooping her up and taking her home, or to Preble Street, or the ER. There was a daughter, a prosperous realtor in town, who paid the rent so Maura would always have a place to stay, but she'd made it clear she didn't want to hear about her mother's troubles.

He parked in the garage and took the box of evidence and the suitcase to evidence control, leaving Reggie's demons in the car. No sense in sending things up to Wink in the lab until they knew what they dealing with. If Reggie had just gotten tipsy and fallen in the harbor—not an unlikely scenario since it was the season for Reggie's annual descent into the bottle—he could just give all this to Reggie's brother and move on.

That was what he wanted to have happened, he supposed, if Reggie was going to be dead, which he indisputably was. A quiet death and a quiet funeral, so they could all move on to mourning. But SOP and his instinct said otherwise. Cops learned to trust their instincts, so until Dr. Lee confirmed that there was nothing suspicious, he was treating it as a potential homicide.

* * *

Maura was in a bad way, the worst he'd seen her in years. She sat in Interview 1, rocking and mumbling. Along with her usual gypsy layers of bright sweaters, coats, and skirts, she wore fluffy pink bedroom slippers and neon green socks. Her long hair was matted and uncombed. Her slash of hot pink lipstick didn't follow the contours of her mouth. She'd drawn eyebrows half an inch above her own. When he sat down, she looked at him without recognition.

"Hey, mister," she said, "you got any more of those pastries?"

"Maura." He moved in closer so she had to focus on him. "It's Joe Burgess. Joe Burgess. Reggie's friend. You remember me?"