The Angel of Knowlton Park (42 page)

"Younger than you."

"Might you recognize a picture?"

"I might. I doubt it, though."

"But you'd recognize the car?"

She nodded. "I might. Not too good with cars, mind you, but I've seen it before, parked near the Watts's house. Once, when I was riding with my daughter, I saw Iris get out, but the driver stayed in the car."

"Dark blue? Light blue?"

She considered. "I'd say medium."

"Would you recognize Ricky Martin?"

"I don't know," she said. "There's so many of those boys. Guess I'd recognize whether it was a Martin or not. Beyond that, I couldn't say."

"Did the driver look like one of the Martins?"

She considered his question. "He wasn't dark enough. All the Martin boys are dark."

"Do you know who Henry Devereau is? Big man? Mother Watts's brother?"

"I've seen him at the house."

"Could he have been the man in the car?"

She looked doubtful. "When I've seen him, he's in a truck. Often, he stands in the street yelling, but sometimes he talks to one of the boys. I always assumed he was buying drugs, but I don't know. Other people came there to buy drugs, too. I assume they came to buy drugs. The Watts weren't much for visiting." She shook her head, thin white dandelion wisps of hair against the white pillow. Her voice was faint and her eyelids drooped. "I don't think it was Devereau. He's too big. Too dark."

"Do you remember anything else about Timmy and the car?"

She opened her eyes again, squeezing her chin thoughtfully. "Timmy seemed to be expecting the car. He was looking up and down the street, then waved when he saw it."

He had to find Iris Martin. Whether she knew it or not, she possessed vital information. He smiled at Anna Pederson and touched her hand. "Thank you so much for your help."

"I hope it is help," she said. "I'd hate to have someone get away with a terrible crime like this. The rest of 'em, I wouldn't give you a nickel for the lot, but Timmy was a good little boy. He used to help me out sometimes. And he loved my cat."

He followed the nurse out, got back in the elevator, and went to his car. Terry Kyle was leaning against it, his tie undone, his shirt soaked through with sweat. He straightened when he saw Burgess coming. His thin face was so pale he no longer looked like death warmed over but death out walking. Sweat ran freely from his drenched, spiky hair. "Thought they threw you out of this place," he said. "Can't stay away?"

"Never could stay away from a good crime."

"There's such a thing as a good crime?"

"Challenging crime," he amended. "What keeps us in business."

Kyle gave up banter, falling silent so suddenly someone might have flicked a switch, and stared at him with red, exhausted eyes underscored with circles deep as bruises. "Help me, Joe. I need a lawyer. That associate couldn't get a continuance and she's hopeless. Put her up against Wanda's lawyer and it's bye-bye kids."

"What about Don Longley?"

Kyle looked like he'd bitten into something rancid. Longley was an extremely talented defense lawyer, a thorn in all their sides. He attracted rats as readily as the Pied Piper and had a good record for putting those rats back on the street. He also regularly chewed up police officers on the stand and spat out their gnawed bones.

"He's vicious, never pulls punches, and is tenacious as a pit bull. And he does domestic relations," Burgess said. "He's more than a match for anything Wanda the PMS Queen and her viper of an attorney can throw."

"I just hate the thought of giving him even one cent of an honest police officer's wages."

"Then I'll pay him," Burgess offered. "Rumor has it I'm not an honest police officer. I'm a brutal drug thief with bad judgment. And I'm rich as Croesus."

Kyle uttered a three word sentence which, when the expletives were deleted, consisted of the word "that" and held out his hand. "Give me your phone."

Burgess gave him the phone, then fired up the engine, turning the air up high. Kyle's face was like a silent movie, the strain, the waiting, the nervous look as he explained his situation, the gradual spread of relief as the skin stretched taut over the bones relaxed into something almost peaceful. Kyle nodded a few times, disconnected, and got in the car. "He can see me now. Can you give me a ride?"

"I'll trade you."

Kyle leaned back against the upholstery and closed his eyes, sucking up the cold like a human sponge. His body took on an almost boneless look as he went limp. "What for what?"

"Transportation for information about the piece of carpet."

"I'd stake a thousand bucks it's connected, based on the blood stains and the color."

"Purplish gray?"

"You got it."

"Where's your ride? And Stan?"

"Stan's upstairs, waiting to see if Jason Martin will make some dying declaration. Martin told the nurses he had something for the cops. They called the station, but none of those fuckin' geniuses made the connection to our case. Hope it's not too late."

Burgess shrugged. "Maybe he wants to rat out one of his brothers?"

"Or sisters. Or parents. I just hope he rats out someone. We're all too damned beat to keep this up much longer." Kyle adjusted the vents so they were blowing straight at him. "Man, that's good. What about you? This don't look like home or sick."

"Oh, I'm sick," Burgess said. "And I've spent enough time here, it might as well be home. I was visiting an elderly lady named Anna Pederson, neighbor of the Watts, a lady who sits out on her porch a lot and watches what's going on. She saw Timmy Watts get into a blue car the night he died. A second blue car that came along after Valerie Lowe left. A car Timmy was expecting. Now all we have to do is find the driver."

He brought his car to a rocking halt. "Which connects to something else. Last thing Valerie Lowe said was that Timmy was on his way to see his sister Iris. I asked how he planned on getting there. She said the same way he did last time. When I interviewed her, Iris Martin said she didn't know how Timmy'd gotten there." He shrugged. "I didn't believe her. And now Iris Martin has disappeared."

He pointed to a prosperous brick building. "Here you go, son. Don Longley's office."

Kyle unfolded from the seat, as shaky on his feet as a Christian martyr going to the lions. "Pray for me," he said.

"Better I should pray for Wanda. That she gets religion before Longley tears her throat out. Or for your wallet."

"Your wallet," Kyle corrected. He slammed the door and headed into the building.

Burgess picked up the phone, thumbed through his notebook until he found the number for the Raymond police and asked for Chip Lavoie. When he got patched through, he explained what he needed. Lavoie reluctantly agreed to drive out to Devereau's place, see if Iris was there, and call him back. Then, imitating Kyle, Burgess turned all the vents so they were blowing right at him, and settled in to wait.

Waiting was what cops probably did the most. Break down a thirty-year career, the majority of the hours would have been spent waiting. Waiting or watching or both. There was all kinds of waiting. This was the hardest. Waiting when your nerves were jazzed up, when you were in a race with something you couldn't see or hear but knew was out there. Waiting for a break, for information, for insight, for the pieces to come together.

Cops didn't live in a Disney world where wishing would make it so. They lived in a brutal, scum-infested world where sometimes all the hard work and good will imaginable couldn't make the right thing happen. They lived in a world of yearning souls that were sometimes deeply scarred by the knowledge that people could, and did, get away with murder. Was it just stubborn pride to believe he wasn't letting that happen on his watch, when it had happened before? Was he doing enough? Could he try harder?

There was sharp bang against the window by his head. Instantly he was upright and alert, staring at Andrea Dwyer beside the car on her bike, grinning a Cheshire cat grin.

He rolled down the window, letting in a wave of briny heat and the minty scent of her soap. "Gotcha!" she said. "Or doesn't it count to catch you napping if you're on sick leave?"

"You were going to leave me something?"

"Yeah." She thumped a fist against her helmet. "Bad brain day, Joe. Must be the heat." She handed him a manila envelope. "Jolene says you're too old for me."

"I'm too old for me," he said. "I tried to tell her I wasn't after you."

"I know." Did he detect a touch of disappointment in her voice? "Show these pictures to Nina Mallett," she said. "I'm betting you get a bingo."

"We could use a bingo."

She raised her arms and stretched, lithe as a cat, and he thought, with more appreciation than lust, that she'd be a lovely sight naked. "You've got that right," she said. She hadn't missed his stare. Her radio spoke and she sketched a wave. "Never too hot for bad guys, huh? I wish they'd take a day off."

She rode away. He went back to waiting. Waiting for news. Waiting for Kyle. Waiting for the phone to ring.

Chapter 32

Finally it rang. "Devereau damned near shot my ass off. Next time, you can go yourself," Lavoie complained.

Burgess wasn't feeling awfully sympathetic, but he kept his opinion—that Lavoie's ass could use a little reduction—to himself. "And?"

"Girl's not there. At least, he says she's not there, and there was no sign of her."

"That all?"

"Not quite. He says she called him to come pick her up this morning. They went out to breakfast. He says she looked real nice. Wearing a blue dress. Asshole says blue is definitely her color. He tells me this while he's stroking his fuckin' gun stock like it's a pet or something. Says he dropped her off and that's the last he saw of her."

"Dropped her off where?"

"Knowlton Park. Wherever the hell that is."

"Where her brother's body was found. What time?"

"Around eleven. He says."

"She say why she wanted to be dropped off there?"

"If she did, Devereau didn't deign to share that."

"He tell you anything else?"

"She was going to meet her boyfriend."

"You get the boyfriend's name? Anything about him?"

"He didn't know the name. Said he'd only seen him once. You wanted to come by and show him some pictures, he'd take a stab at an ID. He seemed real taken with the idea of another visit from you. Guess you were a hit."

"You believe him that the girl wasn't there?"

"He let me look around." Burgess could almost hear the shrug in Lavoie's voice. "Not much to that house. Unless he had the girl stashed in one of those abandoned vehicles, she wasn't there. Sorry I can't be more help. I'd like the bastard who killed that boy caught as much as anyone."

"Thanks for going out there. I appreciate it."

He called dispatch. Asked for any vehicles registered to Henry Devereau. Gave the address. The dispatcher said, "I ran those McBride's for you. There's just one car registered to her. A tan Mazda."

She would have a tan car. He wondered about the car the son was driving. Asked them to run all McBrides, and then, since he was thinking of it, asked them to run Jason and Ricky Martin. "It'll be a while," he was told. "You want the printout on your desk?"

"Call when it's ready. I'll swing by and get it." He couldn't, but Kyle or Perry could.

As if he was reading Burgess's mind, Perry's voice came over the radio. "Joe? You seen Terry? I left him in the lobby and he disappeared."

"I took him," Burgess said.

"For immoral purposes?"

"They felt moral at the time. We'll see how I feel in the morning. Get anything from Jason Martin?"

"Took too goddamned long to get the message. He was pretty incoherent. Kept raving about Iris and her petal file, like she collected bleeping dried flowers or something. And his brother Ricky."

"You're sure he mentioned Iris?"

"Pretty sure. Why?"

"She's missing." It all kept coming back to Iris.