The Angel of Knowlton Park (29 page)

He wondered where the uniforms were. And Melia. Whether his intuition was right and Osborne was in that garage, not already disappearing into the distance, laughing his ass off at their incompetence.

Osborne was probably unarmed, but it was something one never assumed. Too many cops sent to their eternal rest that way. Spend years on the job with your antennae up and nothing ever happens, then one day you let down your guard, and wham, it comes at you.

Crouching so that he was sheltered from the garage by the car, he eyeballed the street again. It was as quiet as if the whole world had fallen under a spell. No people, no cars, not even a bird. There was a good-sized rock by his foot. He picked it up, hefted it, then flung it into the garage. Just his luck, he'd probably break some innocent homeowner's priceless collection of antique glass. People stored the strangest stuff in their garages.

There was an exclamation, silence, some rustling. Suddenly, Osborne burst out of the garage on a bicycle, coming straight at him, swinging something curved and lethal. A hand sickle. Burgess fumbled for his gun, getting the holster unsnapped, the gun sticking in a holster swollen from the heat and humidity. Those fumbling seconds made all the difference, he was still bringing the gun up as Osborne was on top of him. Too late to shoot. He stepped aside as the sickle rose and fell, shoving his gun away as he grabbed at Osborne's other arm and pulled him off the bike, trying to hold him at an arm's length as he screamed for Kyle.

The bike clattered to the street as Osborne came at him. Burgess sensed the empty afternoon filling with people, bodies and voices surrounding them as they circled each other. Now there was no way he could use his gun; neither could Kyle, all these goddamned people waking up just in time to be in the way. Suddenly, Osborne lunged at him, the sickle blade glancing off the edge of his vest, tearing down through flesh. As Osborne's arm fell, Burgess moved in, swinging his fist, connecting with Osborne's face. Blood gushed but Osborne didn't fall. Burgess hit him again, hard and fast, and backed away from the swinging sickle.

He heard Kyle's feet racing, voice calling. Felt the hot flow of blood, the fierce bite of pain. Watching the blade, he didn't see the foot coming until it landed and his knee gave way beneath him. Fumbling again for the gun, he heard his own voice yelling, "Stop. Police," as Osborne snatched up the bike again and began peddling away.

He searched through the crowd for a clear shot. They stood, dumb as sheep, none of them with the sense to move out of the way. That and maybe a slight desire to favor the criminal in a neighborhood that had had its share of entanglements with the police.

Suddenly, Osborne's body jerked, one arm flying up. A cry, loud in the still air. The bike dipped, wavered, one foot slamming the pavement. Someone had thrown a rock. Burgess ran gasping in the thick air, still gripping his gun, waiting for Osborne to fall, his own blood rushing hotly down his arm,. No third arm to grab his radio and call for assistance, no shoulder mike on a detective's suit. Kyle's pounding footsteps not far behind.

Then, astonishingly, Osborne's foot came up off the ground, the bike righted and surged forward. Osborne pulled away. Burgess reached down for more speed and came up empty. He steadied his gun but suddenly, everywhere he looked, the street was full of people.

Kyle shot past him, feet flying, and disappeared around the corner after the bike. Why were they the only police officers out here? Where in hell was everyone? He grabbed his radio, gave the call for an officer down, and the particulars of the fleeing suspect, possibly injured, on a stolen bike. Then, recognizing the futility of chasing after a bike already out of sight, he sat down on the curb, rivulets of blood running between the spread fingers braced against the granite. His other hand still held the gun. Doing it all, as he had so often, before a staring crowd. Like he could have told Officer Beck.
Sometimes you bleed through your clothes in this business. You might as well get used to it.

"You happy now?" he yelled at the crowd. "You happy? I hope none of you are parents, 'cuz that guy you just helped get away, he rapes little boys."

Kyle returned, winded and retching. After the expletives were deleted, there wasn't anything to say except the criticisms they were heaping on themselves in the privacy of their heads. After a minute, bored with watching his blood pool, Burgess got up and put his gun away. "Might as well go tell Vince." They headed back the way they'd come.

Chapter 22

He'd never understood why they didn't market adrenaline as a drug. Maybe they couldn't synthesize it. Maybe everyone already thought they had enough of their own. Police officers, in the course of their roller coaster days, grew familiar with the adrenaline rush, that blast in the pit of the stomach that spread through the body, endowing it, temporarily, with super powers. Like many drugs, though, it had a negative side. When the rush subsided, you could find yourself in surprisingly bad shape, like he was now. Limping down an urban street on a summer Sunday afternoon, dripping scarlet blood onto the dirty gray sidewalk.

Dammit, he wanted to have shot Osborne. To have dragged that child-raping sucker off that bike and ground his smug face into the pavement. He resented the rules on using deadly force—the rules and that crowd of useless gawkers preventing him and Kyle from firing their guns.

Kyle marched tight-lipped beside him, holding the sickle by the narrow part where the handle met the blade. "Figured if I left it there, one of those worthless jerks'd take it as a souvenir." Kyle was self-contained, taciturn, but normally he was lit by a cold intensity, like a lightning bug. Now he drooped like an old man, his gaunt face beaded with sweat. Kyle wouldn't complain. He wasn't the complaining type, but he'd be beating himself up because he hadn't outrun a perp on a bike on this sodden hot bitch of a day.

Burgess cradled his arm like a sick child and cursed himself for letting this happen. Maybe if he hadn't insisted on the Crips? But it wasn't just him. The whole thing was screwed up. Why was only one goddamned officer covering the back? Why hadn't he gotten up and come after Osborne? What was Melia thinking? This was a teamwork thing. You couldn't fail to plan, or have back-up. You couldn't sit on your ass and not use your head and expect to catch bad guys.

He smoldered like a banked fire, needing only the slightest thing to fan him into a blaze again. "I can't believe we let that fucker get away," he said.

"You called it from the first," Kyle reminded him. "You said it was going to be a bitch." He looked at the bloody wound. "That must hurt."

"Puts me in touch with my mortality."

"And keeps you awake," Kyle said, yawning.

How many times over the years had they been at this point? So damned tired they could have gone to sleep on their feet? And if they did, that's just what the GP would see. Not the 18-20 hour days, the heartbreaking, ball busting interviews. Not the gut-wrenching chore of attending a small boy's autopsy. Nah. They'd see two seedy-looking cops in rumpled clothes, leaning against a building or a car, eyes closed, sleeping on the job.

On feet heavy as cement blocks, they retraced their steps down the driveway strewn with plastic vehicles, over the fence, and into Osborne's yard. Melia met them at the door. Burgess had planned to ask, straight away, why no one had come to back them up, but Melia's appearance answered his question. The dapper suit was smudged with soot and water, Melia's hands and face a grimy black. "You didn't get him?" he said.

"I hit him," Burgess said. "Bastard wouldn't fall. Slashed me with a sickle and rode off on a bicycle."

"Hit him with what? Fist or gun?"

"Too many people around for a gun."

"Good. We've got enough paperwork already." A brief show of white teeth in the blackened face. "I think the bad guys are winning today. And Paul was salivating for an arrest." Then, taking in Burgess's bloody arm, he said kindly, "Don't bring that blood in here, okay? I've got enough contamination already."

"I blew it," Burgess said, "letting him get away." His arm felt like he'd been gnawed on by rats and hurt like a bastard. He felt blacker and meaner and uglier than ever. Furious with himself at having to take time to go get stitched up. Furious with Osborne. Disturbed at how badly he'd wanted to shoot the man.

"Osborne destroy much?"

"Don't know yet," Melia said. "I hope not. He had a little study off the kitchen, stuff sitting in boxes like he was ready to move it out. Mostly photographs. That's where he started the fire. The real fire. He set some others as distractions. Fast on his feet, that one."

"You should have brought Dwyer. She would've caught him."

"She was invited. Something came up."

Too bad. She would have knocked that sucker off his bike, hog-tied him, slung him over her shoulder and brought him back like a cartoon caveman returning with dinner. Cavewoman. Still, the idea of someone slashing her with a sickle aroused vestiges of male chauvinism. He preferred women's rippling muscles under unscarred flesh. "His computer?"

"Rocky says it should be okay. He's coming over."

"We're looking for two small needlepoint pillows. Yellow and blue. Be sure you check his trash."

Burgess wanted to help with the search, but traipsing through the house in his present condition was dumb. There was nothing for him to do here. Might as well go get sewn up. "Terry, I'm going over to the ER, get a little mending done. You may as well stay here, help Vince. You hear the girls are fixing us supper?"

"They're what?"

"Over at my place, fixing a nice, nourishing meal. They're worried about us."

Kyle looked away, then back, his face tighter, more worried. He shrugged. "You tell 'em we were working a murder?"

"What do you think? Chris said we still gotta eat, and it'll be better than Mickey D's."

"She's got that right."

"So when you're done here, and I'm done there, we could meet up and go over." He wasn't even sure why he was suggesting this. Kyle's reaction mirrored his own when Chris called. Worse for Kyle because he was already on the shit list for missing yesterday. Kyle was using all his energy to push himself through the day. He had nothing left for chit chat and a dinner party, for humans who weren't on the same wavelength. "Just to eat, Ter. I told her we had no time."

Kyle gave a weary shrug. "Okay." He went up the steps and into the house.

Burgess walked to the car, the pain in his knee matching the one in his arm—a fearful symmetry. He wanted to search the city, block by block, until he found Osborne and beat the crap out of him, needed to stay focused, get his arm fixed, get back to work. Thirty-six hours in, there had been a fair amount of drama and bloodshed; otherwise things were moving like that famous molasses in January. He thought of Delinsky's watchful old lady, who'd been taken to the hospital. Might as well kill two birds with one hospital visit. He got on the radio.

He'd been in the ER at Maine Med more often than he'd been in a church the last few years. Hell, he'd probably logged more time here than he'd spent in church in the last decade.

He'd come to get repaired, come plenty of times to interview victims and their families, even to interview the docs. He'd done the death watch for his mother here—endless sterile hours in the ICU, watching her life's ebb measured in colored lines, in plastic bags and bottles filled and emptied, in the ceaseless whoosh of the respirator. He hated the feel of the place, the smell, the numbing glare of the lights.

He parked close to the door and marched up to the receptionist. He knew most of the people—CID was in and out of there almost as much as street police—but she was a stranger. Without giving her a chance to speak, he said, "Detective Burgess, Portland Police. I'm in the middle of a murder investigation. You got someone who can sew me up real quick?"

They found him a young doc who seemed more pained by the process than he was, someone who wanted to give him care when all he wanted was mending. Many stitches later, he went to the information desk to get directions to Anna Pederson's room. Charlie, the security guard, surveyed his torn, bloody shirt and bandaged arm. "Don't tell me someone's killed another doc?"

"Don't you read the papers?"

"The kid?" Burgess nodded. "That's a sick one," Charlie said. "I've never seen anything like that picture."