Redemption (A Joe Burgess Mystery, Book 3) (7 page)

It was hard to have a relative in Maura's situation. It did tax compassion. But there was something in him—probably that which had driven him to become a cop and stay a cop—maybe some echoes of the Baltimore catechism, that always kept him hoping for redemption. In the mother and the daughter. "Sorry to have bothered you, ma'am," he said, resisting the impulse to urge her to have a nice day.

He cruised by Stan's desk to see if there was anything new. Found the young detective staring at two shoes sitting on a plastic trash bag. The one from Reggie's closet was old and worn, the other, still oozing salt water, a fancy Reebok, fresh from the box. "Same size. Eleven," Perry said. "I don't get it, Joe. Why buy new shoes if you're going to jump in the water?"

"We don't know that he jumped. You got a witness says he jumped? Got a note saying goodbye, cruel world, or are you tuned in to some psychic hotline?"

"Okay. So why take off your shoes if you're going to fall in the water?"

"Maybe he took them off because they weren't broken in and hurt his feet. Maybe they fell off when he fell in," Burgess said. "Maybe he was running from something. We got any reports of people harassing the homeless lately?"

"You mean, more often than every day?" Perry said. "Waterfront's right next to the Old Port. Kids in the Old Port, they're getting drunk and bothering people all the time. Homeless or la-di-da homeowner from Cape Elizabeth, Falmouth, or the West End. We got equal opportunity drunken assholes."

"Not exactly social progress," Burgess said. "I meant maybe a sharp young detective shows up at roll call, asks did anyone see or hear anything and can they keep their ears open."

Perry looked around the empty detective's bay. "You see any sharp young detectives around here?" He yawned. "I am so freakin' tired I could put my head down on these goddamned shoes and sleep."

They studied the shoes. The old, worn-out running shoe and the clean white new one. Both shoes were untied. "It could have fallen off," Perry said, "but then where's the other one? Was he wearing socks?"

"I didn't see, did you? Feet were bagged and we left them on 'til tomorrow at the ME's."

"We both going?" Perry asked, stretching. He dropped his arms like they were too heavy. "Man, you think I'm young, Joe. I'm thinking I'm getting too old for this—screwing all night then bringing a fresh, alert mind to a crime scene. How do you and Terry do it, anyway?"

"Practice," Burgess said. "Besides, we're too old to screw all night. That's for kids like you." He stood up. "I need my beauty sleep."

"Hate to tell you, Joe, but you could sleep as long as Rip Van Winkle and it wouldn't make a difference. So. Tomorrow? Augusta? Crap of dawn?"

"Yeah, and bring an alert mind with you. I don't want to have to start giving you a bedtime."

"Oh, I was in bed nice and early."

"Spare me," Burgess said.

He took his camera down to the waterfront and snapped some pictures of the balloon still marking the spot where Reggie's body had been, some more of the wharf and the street. Then he swung by his house to get Reggie's brother's number and address. Clayton Libby lived fifty miles from Portland, too far to drive unless a phone call confirmed that he was home. While he was there, Burgess changed his shirt. Maura had left most of her lipstick and eyebrows on him as well as her tears.

The house was eerily quiet. A clock ticking. The annoying drip in the shower that he'd already fixed twice. Sunlight coming through the windows illuminated Chris's touches—shiny floors, fresh paint, two colorful posters, and some green plants. She'd left his crime scene photographs, the ones he went back and took after the scene was processed, when it was empty, a visual reminder of the questions he had to answer, the spaces he needed to fill in. His memoir, reframed and rehung in groups. The centerpiece was where Kristin Marks had been found. Smoky purple shadows across the trash heap.

Under his photographs she'd put an antique bookcase full of books, topped each week with fresh flowers. His mother's bookcase, which Chris had found in the garage and refinished; his mother's vase, which Chris had found in the back of a cupboard. Behind the sink in the spotless kitchen, his mother's African violets, the only plants he'd ever failed to kill, were thriving under Chris's expert care. It looked like a home, not the spare quarters of a depressed detective. He wondered if that was about to end.

He found Clay's number, then sat on the couch a while, phone in hand, watching dust motes float in streaks of slanting sunlight. Nothing new about this. He'd been calling people with bad news—calling and showing up on their doorsteps—for decades, but the phone seemed too heavy to lift to his ear. His fingers too stiff to dial. He should have handed this off to Stan. Couldn't have, though. He owed it to Reggie and Clay to do this himself. Finally he forced his fingers to move.

Clay was breathless when he answered. "Sorry, I was out in the yard."

"Clay, it's Joe Burgess."

There was silence. Calls from Burgess meant trouble. Then Clay's cautious voice, the predictable response from someone conditioned by decades of such calls. "What is it this time?"

"I'd like to come and talk to you, Clay, if you're going to be home this afternoon."

"I'm home. Got four cords of wood to split and stack. What's up?" When Burgess didn't answer, he said, "Come on, Joe. It's a nice day for a drive, but you wouldn't be coming all the way out here if something hadn't happened. Is Reggie okay?"

No sense in playing games. Clay had answered the phone a hundred times over the years expecting this news. And they had enough of a relationship so Burgess owed Clay the truth. Clay beat him to it. "You don't have to beat around the bush, Joe. We both know what Reggie's life was like. You wouldn't want to come out here if it wasn't serious. We've done this over the phone a dozen times, easy, probably more. Putting together a plan to stick more patches on Reggie's life. It's been a lot of years. So you must be calling to tell me it's..."

Reggie's brother grabbed a shuddering breath. "...the end this time."

Burgess pictured Clay's callused fingers gripping the phone, the chiseled face so much like Reggie's staring into space in the comfortable farmhouse kitchen. The striking greenish eyes that on Clay looked smart and compelling and on Reggie had been closer to a madman's stare. However weary he'd grown of picking his little brother out of the mud, Clayton Libby had loved Reggie. Like Burgess, he'd never stopped hoping Reggie's life would turn around.

Finally, Clay asked the hard question, "Accident or suicide?"

Burgess wasn't raising the third possibility. Not until he knew something. "We don't know yet. Divers took his body out of the harbor a couple hours ago. Because it was an unattended death, the medical examiner has scheduled an autopsy for tomorrow. I'm sorry," he repeated. "I wish I were bringing you better news." He wanted to get off this goddamned phone before one of them lost it.

"I don't want to sound coldhearted, Joe," Clay said, "but there hasn't been any good news about Reggie in a long time." There was a pause. "Hell, I guess I
was
hoping for some good news. Reggie was in great shape when he left here in September. He had a job, something that sounded steady, and he was feeling pretty up about that. He did call, said he wasn't feeling too well, and was gonna see the doctor, but I figured that wasn't bad news—he really was seeing the doctor and trying to take care of himself. And he wasn't drinking."

There was a pause, a muffled sob. "That was a step in the right direction." There was a crash, sounding like a chair had fallen over. A muffled, "Oh fuck!" Then Clay said, "Listen. Joe. I don't think you better come out here today. The two of us, we start looking at each other and talkin' about Reggie, we'll bawl our eyes out."

He had that right. It would start before Burgess got out of the car. Christ, just seeing Clay's face, looking like a healthy, unhaunted Reggie and the hurt would tear right through him.

Clay was talking again. "Guess I just need a little time to process this by myself. You wanna come tomorrow, come tomorrow. Tonight, I'm gonna sit here and get shitfaced and think about that goddamned war that stole Reggie's life. Mary's off visiting her sister. Got no one around to fuss over me. Know what I mean?"

Another chair fell, and a crash that Burgess imagined was the chair getting kicked into the wall. Good thing Mary wasn't home. "Okay, Joe?" Clay said. "That okay with you?"

Burgess felt the pain start, like someone had stuck a buck knife into his stomach and was twisting it. Probably a good thing Chris was gone, too. "Gonna go kick some chairs myself, Clay. You take it easy. I'll call you tomorrow, let you know what I learn, see if you're ready for company."

"You take care, Joe. Get shitfaced, too, if that copshop'll let you. Lift one for Reggie. Hell, lift two. Three. Four." The phone went dead.

Chapter 5

The Sunday of Columbus Day weekend Burgess rolled out of bed early, leaving Chris asleep. Another beautiful day he got to admire through his windshield as he drove north to Augusta. An hour alone in the car while he tried to get a grip on the chaos in his personal life and clear his mind for the job ahead, trying to ignore the fact that this morning in the autopsy room, personal and professional would collide.

Thirty years ago, he'd dragged Reggie out of a rice field, screaming and bleeding from shrapnel wounds. Today, laid out on the table, Reggie's physical scars would be visible; the scars on his soul would not. Jesus. Fuck! He pounded the steering wheel.

His job was to deal, to function, moving calmly through a universe of suffering and bad deeds, trying to make the world right. He did it the way all cops did—by keeping the bad stuff at arm's length, boxing it up in process and order, putting distance between himself and emotion. You couldn't do it any other way and survive the job. The bad stuff just kept coming, year in, year out, while he waded through an endless sewer pipe, trying to carry the good people on his shoulder like St. Christopher.

Not that he'd ever felt saintly. Now, with things going to hell with Chris, he felt even less so. He should have heeded that voice in his head that said alone was the only way to go. He'd just been so damned tired of being alone, and Chris lit him up. She made him feel alive and hopeful, like it was possible to have a life and do the job. Like some hungry old bear, he had wandered out of hibernation and there she was. She'd put some balance in his life. Now it seemed like she was bent on undoing all that.

Sure, there had been strains before. Sometimes she got frustrated with the way his job controlled his life, with the calls and the hours, the danger and the canceled plans. But it seemed like they were working through that, that she'd accepted the nature of his job and been okay with it. Until this week.

Four days ago, over a pleasant dinner and recap of their days, she suddenly set down her fork, and said, "Joe, there's something we need to talk about. I know it'll be kind of a shock for you. It will seem too early in our relationship." She'd smiled her knowing smile. "Changing you is like turning a supertanker, Joe. So you're going to think I'm pushing too hard or wanting too much too soon. But I've been thinking about this for a while, and I don't think I can wait much longer..." She'd tilted her head back and forth, mocking herself the way she did. "You're going to think I'm out of my mind."

He set down his fork, too, his stomach tightening. She looked so serious. Older and more tired, too, as though coming to this decision had aged her. He was usually pretty good at anticipating, but he had no idea what was coming.

She picked up her fork again, pushed some shreds of chicken like a mop through the gravy on her plate, and set the fork down again without eating. "Joe, I want to adopt Neddy and Nina. I'm afraid if I wait, they'll have been placed... or at least, Neddy will. I can't imagine many families will be eager to take Nina... and he'll have gotten settled someplace. Nina needs stability." A pause, a deep breath. "And she needs to be with Neddy."

Not "We should adopt Neddy and Nina," he noticed. She had said "I." She also hadn't asked for his opinion, probably because she already knew what he'd say. She'd gone on, ignoring his stunned silence, mentioning the attic as a third bedroom. How much fun she and Nina would have making the guest room into a girl's room. How much the children needed a stable and permanent family and her mother would be able to help. He had let her talk on without interrupting because he couldn't think of a single positive thing to say.