The Angel of Knowlton Park (27 page)

Kyle slid past, quick and sinuous as a snake, and went to stand beside Bascomb. Very close to Bascomb. "Yeah, Wayne. How do you account for that?" Kyle asked. Burgess was the bigger man but there was something in Kyle that unnerved people. Something about his manner and his cold eyes. In the way he seemed to vibrate even when he was still. Bascomb felt it. Kept trying to shift his chair away when there was no place to go.

Bascomb looked at Kyle and Burgess and shrugged. "Maybe the stuff wasn't there?"

Kyle slowly and deliberately settled his belt on his narrow hips, his gun, and his hand, about parallel with Bascomb's nose. "Lotta people saw it, Wayne."

"I was only on until twelve," Bascomb said. "Maybe someone took it after that."

"Devlin says he picked up the box at 11:45. Isn't that what your records show?"

Guy behind Burgess, wanting to get in the room, cleared his throat, "Excuse me, sir?"

"Come back in five," Burgess said.

Bascomb checked the records and grunted a reluctant, "Yeah." He looked at Burgess, his chin hard and stubborn. "Maybe Burgess took it out on the way down."

"But I didn't, Wayne," Burgess said. "Why would I? I'm a cop working on a murdered kid. You think I'd want to screw that up?"

"Beats me." Bascomb turned a page.

"You know," Kyle said, shifting his hip so his gun was right in front of Bascomb's nose. "You haven't been on the street in a while, Wayne. Maybe you forgot we look out for each other. Someone trying to set Joe Burgess up? I don't think the guys'll let something like that go down without taking a real hard look at what happened, do you? Way they'll see it, this time it's Burgess, next time one of them."

Bascomb glared at the gun and tried for tough. "You wanna get that fuckin' thing outa my face, Kyle?"

Kyle flashed a mean grin, eager as a hungry wolf scenting blood, and stepped back. "Yeah. You know... lotta guys around last night. I wouldn't be surprised if someone noticed who was in and out of here, saw what happened to that missing evidence." He took another step back and adjusted his belt again, giving Bascomb a twisted smile. "You remember that time you got cuffed to the lamp post? I've still got pictures of that." Some joker, finding Bascomb cuffed to the pole in his shorts, had snapped a couple shots before setting him free.

Bascomb glared at Burgess. "You guys threatening me?"

"You're kidding," Burgess said. "Threatening you how? With what? I just came to see what happened to my evidence. Thought maybe it fell into the back of a locker or something." He left Bascomb to ponder on that.

"We're going after some bad guys," Kyle said. "Catch you later."

"He damned near wet his pants," Burgess said.

"We just have to be sure he's more scared of us than of Cote," Kyle said. "Let him sweat a while and then we'll crank it up. I'll see who was on early out last night."

"Aucoin's been on early out. He'll know."

They drove out Forest Avenue, watching the poor confused Portlanders trying to cope with the way the lanes on the road appeared and disappeared like mirages in the desert. Trying to go straight was like broken field running. Zig left. Zag right. Probably part of some new traffic calming strategy. It was enough to drive anyone into a rage.

They parked in front of the Human Services building, a decaying white edifice as down-at-the-heels as the citizens who came through its doors. At least, it being Sunday, they didn't have to look for a place to park. They got out and stood on the steamy sidewalk amidst a litter of cigarette butts and discarded coffee cups. One reliable thing about the welfare population—they might not be able to afford food or clothes or shoes for the kids, but there was always money for cigarettes and coffee.

Burgess shook his head. He was becoming too damned cynical. Too sure he'd seen it all before. He was supposed to be keeping an open mind and a kind heart. He was the champion of the downtrodden, wasn't he? The man people told their children to seek out and rely on? "I'll do the talking," he said. "You be ready to shoot him if he tries to justify leaving the kid in that shithole. Okay?"

"If you say so." Kyle patted his gun. "But I've grown fond of old Nelly here. She's been traveling with me a long time. Hate to turn her over to those cold-eyed fellas from the AG's office, all because of a little deadly force. I think they overreact anyway. Oughta get a quota, like hunters. More than one shooting per year and they investigate."

"That's inspired, Ter. You should put that one in the suggestion box."

"I did. Weekly. Vince asked me to stop. Rank has had a deleterious effect on him. He used to be fun."

Together they pushed through the door and followed the signs until they found the child protection offices. The place was dark and hot and smelled of poor hygiene, cheap scent, desperation, and smoke that had traveled in on people's clothes. He called, "Hello," a few times, got no response. "Probably went to powder his nose. Cops make some people nervous, and this asshole
should
be nervous."

Finally a door slammed somewhere in the building, and a man hurried toward them, carrying a can of Coke and a thick folder. He was sweaty and balding, with thick glasses perched on a fleshy pink nose. His remaining hair and eyebrows were curly, dark and wild. He wore navy athletic shorts and a white tank top, but the body thus revealed hadn't had contact with a gym in a long time. He looked from one to the other. "Detective Burgess?"

"Present," Burgess said.

The man thrust out a soft hand as pink as a baby mouse. "Jim Taylor. I was Timothy's social worker. It's a terrible thing." He went behind a desk and put the file down.

Kyle was eyeing him, probably waiting for the cue to shoot, so Burgess didn't say what he wanted to. That Taylor was almost as responsible as the killer for what had happened. Taylor's conduct and competence didn't matter right now. They were here to see the records. Burgess reached for the folder. "This is Timmy's file?"

Taylor laid a protective hand on it. "Won't you sit down?"

Were they about to be handed a ration of administrative bullshit? They perched on a pair of rickety welfare chairs designed to make anyone using them feel unwelcome. Legs of four different lengths, so you got distracted trying to find a balance point. Upholstery spun from a mixture of old hair and straw, fabric that pricked your thighs and made your butt itch so you couldn't sit still for the hours the system required. Not that Burgess was ever in a waiting mood. He reached for the file again. Taylor pulled it back.

"We came to see the file," Burgess said.

"I just need to establish some ground rules first." Jim Taylor's coke bottle glasses had thick black rims hooked over large ears. He smelled like he hadn't showered recently. It was hot. Everyone sweated. Considerate folks showered. Used their Right Guard. Flossed and brushed. Tried not to get pissed off and shoot at each other.

"Ground rules?"

Taylor sighed. "I explained all this to your boss. You're welcome to look through the file; however, you may not take anything, and we can't make you copies until we have written permission from the Commissioner." Those who can, do, those who can't work for Human Services. Taylor probably had a degree in accounting or art history. Clearly not phys. ed, not with that body. But Burgess had met some whose degrees
were
in phys ed.

"Which will be when?" Kyle asked.

Jim Taylor tented his thick fingers together. "And you are?" Perhaps his mother had taught him not to speak to anyone unless he was properly introduced, making a job like his rather difficult.

"Detective Terry Kyle, Portland CID. Investigating the murder of Timothy Watts." Kyle's voice was slow and portentous, like he was reading off a celestial teleprompter. When Kyle got mad, he could get very formal.

Burgess reached for the file again. Taylor didn't move his protective hand. "Maybe Lt. Melia didn't make our situation clear, Mr. Taylor. Time is of the essence right now."

"I'm sure it is." Taylor gave a small laugh. "Otherwise, would I be here on Sunday?"

His laugh stirred a flash of anger in Kyle that seemed to Burgess to crackle in the stale air. Taylor didn't notice. Burgess opened his notebook. "So what's the problem? Does something need to happen before we see the file? You want us to sign a form or something?"

"Oh. I thought you'd want to talk with me first," Taylor said. "Get some background on the situation."

"Background?" Burgess said. "On what situation?"

"The family situation, all that."

"It's not documented in the file?"

"Well, my reports are in the file, of course, but I thought you'd want my impressions."

Burgess had had enough pussyfooting around. He pulled the file out from under Taylor's protective hand, flipped it open, peeled off half the papers and handed the rest to Kyle. "You don't mind if we spread out? Use your desk? We've got a lot of stuff to go through, and some pressing business awaiting us."

Taylor looked disappointed. Evidently, he'd planned to be their guide through the intricacies of the Human Services world. Burgess just wanted to know what the department's contacts with the family had been, who'd reported Timmy might be in jeopardy, and what the department's response had been. "I want the names of anyone who made a report concerning any of the children," he told Kyle. "Those are people we want to talk to."

He pulled out the top report and started reading through it. It documented a recent visit by Taylor to the Watts home. It appeared that he'd been responding to a complaint from Julie Gordon. He read the report, set it on the desk, and looked at Taylor. "You were there two weeks ago?" Taylor nodded. "It says here you found no problems in the house?"

"That's right."

He scanned the report. It did note the presence of two infants in the house. "What about the filth? The animal feces? The garbage?"

"No worse than many of the places I visit."

Burgess, who'd waded through three decades of filth, wondered what Taylor used as a measure. "What about the absence of food in the refrigerator?"

Taylor only shrugged. "The child didn't seem malnourished."

"You take him to a physician? Get a professional opinion?"

"No."

"You consider that soon those infants would be crawling?" The thought turned his stomach. The infants were still in the house.

Jim Taylor picked absently at a scab on his hand. "I suggested they clean the place up," he said.

"That's not in your report. There's nothing about the physical state of that house."

Taylor picked at the scab some more, then shrugged. "It's in the earlier reports. That's how these people live, Detective. You must know that. You're in and out of these places all the time. I don't claim to be a miracle worker. I'm just trying to do my job."

"What is that, exactly?" Burgess asked. He looked over at Kyle, whose hands were shaking. Saw a muscle working in Kyle's jaw. Fifteen or twenty years ago, they might have taken Taylor behind the building, pounded the crap out of him, and gone home knowing they'd done a good day's work. These days, a harsh word could constitute police brutality, especially to a sensitive man like Taylor.

Instead of answering, Taylor plucked up a picture of Timmy Watts from the papers Burgess had discarded. "He was a beautiful little boy, wasn't he? I used to take him out to eat sometimes. He loved pizza."

Another flag fell on the field. "What about the lack of supervision? The fact that no regular meals were served? The fact that the boy was bruised and filthy? The obvious overcrowding? Blatant drug and alcohol use?"

"Detective..." Taylor's condescending tone implied that Burgess simply didn't understand. "If we took every child who lived in a dirty house with alcoholic parents into custody, we'd have no place to put them."

Burgess thumbed through the file. Complaints from Grace Johnston, from the Gordons, from other neighbors, from Timmy's teacher, Sally Mitchell, about him being dirty, hungry, falling asleep in class. She had written the note Burgess found in Timmy's book. There was a lengthy, articulate complaint from a Regina McBride about the lack of parental supervision. Even a letter from Iris, explaining that no one took Timmy for physicals, got him his shots, cared for him when he was sick. There was a letter from a physician some social worker had taken Timmy to, stating that in his professional opinion, Timothy Watts was the victim of repeated physical abuse.

What on earth did it take? He wrote down names and addresses, phone numbers where he could find them, and looked up. "You've read this file?"

"Of course. I was the boy's case worker."

"And despite the volume of complains, the physical state of the house, and a physician's statement that Timmy was being abused, you did nothing?"

"Our goal is to keep the family intact wherever possible."

What family? "Well, you did a hell of a job here, didn't you?"

He made some final notes. Couldn't bring himself to look at Taylor again. The impulse toward violence was just too great. "Terry? You finished?"

Kyle made a note and looked up. He looked sick. This time, though, Burgess thought it was from what he'd been reading. "Three broken bones in two years," he said. "One severe burn. Two wounds requiring stitches. That didn't raise any red flags?"