The Angel of Knowlton Park (8 page)

"Dwayne doesn't need to know it came from you."

The boy pushed a shock of hair back from his face and looked at Burgess hopefully. "I guess that's right, isn't it? I'm Matty. Matthew McBride. I live over on Morning."

"What number?"

"226. No. Sorry. 236."

"Date of birth?" The information, when divulged, made him eighteen.

"Your phone number?"

"Hey," the boy said, surprise, and something—concern, maybe—in his voice, "you aren't going to like.... come there, or call me up, are you? Because my mom wouldn't like that. She wouldn't want me involved in this. She's uncomfortable with the Watts family, you know. They may be ignorant thugs, but it isn't smart to underestimate people with a propensity for violence. She tried talking to Mother Watts once." His eyes flitted from one of them to the other. "Timmy's mother, I mean, trying to tell her that she ought to keep better track of Timmy. I guess you can imagine how that went."

He tugged at his hair and flopped over onto the other side of the car. "I mean, do you, like,
know
about that family? I figured, being cops and all, you must."

He trailed off, obviously overwhelmed by the possibility of having to explain the Watts family. Then he blurted out his phone number and began to button his shirt.

"I think we've got them figured out," Burgess said. "What was it you wanted to tell us?" They were late getting to the victim's family and this little twerp was taking his sweet time getting to the point.

"It was maybe a week ago. A week, ten days... I forget." The boy settled into story-telling mode, the busy fingers now unbuttoning. "I was coming back from the park. I'd been over there tossing a Frisbee with Timmy. He was..." He hesitated. "Timmy was a pretty good athlete for such a little shrimp. Coming up toward their house, there were loud voices. Timmy was timid, you know. He tried to avoid fights and stuff."

Burgess could feel the clock ticking, forced himself to be patient.

McBride tapped his lips. "That's why he spent so much time wandering around the neighborhood, even at night, or like when it was raining and stuff. Trying to stay out of their way. So when he hears loud voices, he says 'Let's wait here, Matty. Dwayne sounds angry' and pulls me into the bushes. So, we're crouching there, listening to Dwayne and this other dude arguing, and the mosquitoes are eating us alive."

He shrugged. "I don't suppose I'm really much use to you, you know. I can't describe the other guy."

The boy almost seemed to be enjoying this, but maybe it was only that nerves were making him scatterbrained. Or he was one of those pitiful characters who hoped to be a hero, and the hesitations were coyness. Burgess knew anything could be their big break, but this didn't feel promising. "That's okay," he said. "Just tell me what you saw."

"Like I said. Dwayne was arguing with someone. A big bulky man. Dark. He had his back to me, but their voices were loud. I heard him say, 'You'd better get me what you owe me, Dwayne. What I paid you for. Or something very bad's gonna happen.' Dwayne yells at him that he'll get his fuckin' stuff soon as it's ready. Then the man says, 'That's what you said last week, asshole,' and Dwayne says, 'Get the fuck outa my face,' and the guy says, 'I mean it. I ain't waitin' much longer. You'll be sorry you fucked with me.' Then he jumps in his truck and peels off. Dwayne goes inside and slams the door. Me and Timmy come out of the bushes. He goes inside, and I go home."

Something to ask Dwayne Martin about. "You notice anything about the man? Age? Height?"

"No." The kid was twisting his buttons like they were control knobs.

"What about the truck?"

"I don't pay much attention to trucks. They're kind of a working class thing."

What did the kid expect? It was a working class neighborhood, except for some gentrification around the park and up along the Eastern Promenade.

"Did you see Timmy yesterday?"

One of the buttons popped off. McBride stared at it, surprised, then tucked it in his pocket. "Not for a couple of days. Yesterday, my mom wanted me to spend some time with her. It's her vacation, see, and I'm her only child."

"Who might have seen him? Who should we talk to?"

McBride shook his head.

"We appreciate your coming forward like this, Matty," Burgess said.

He looked back at the boy, trembling like a terrier in the back seat, buttoning the shirt. Didn't add 'We'll be in touch' although they would. About this incident and about Timmy Watts and his habits. Talk to the boy, and, whether she liked it or not, talk to his mother.

Matty McBride exhaled like he'd been holding his breath the whole time, opened the door, and jumped out. He watched them drive off, his fingers hooked through the belt loops of the improbable shorts the boys all wore—the ones that perched precariously on their hip bones, showing a generous swatch of their Joe Boxers—twitching them up and down.

"Something creepy about that kid," Stan said. "He doesn't seem upset enough. And he's an arrogant little snot."

"We don't have to like 'em for them to be useful."

"Not very useful."

Burgess hadn't formed an opinion yet. He'd wait until they'd talked face to face, not looking over his shoulder into a dark back seat. "We'll take another look at him, Detective. And have a chat with his mother."

"He won't like that."

"Nothing new there," Burgess said. "Nobody likes a cop 'til they need one. Let's visit that den of iniquity. And let's tell dispatch where we're going."

"Aye, aye, sir," Stan barked, saluting and picking up the radio, all while pulling away from the curb. A remarkably dexterous lad.

The Watts's place stood out like a red dress at a funeral. It was a quiet street of plain houses fronted by small yards, many with low hedges or some kind of decorative bushes, many with some attempt at grass and flowers. Not the Watts's place. It was impossible to see whether the front lawn had grass. It was covered by parked vehicles. The driveway was blocked by several rusting metal barrels, large blue plastic barrels, beer kegs, a rusting bedspring, an eviscerated sofa, and a small mountain of plastic trash bags. Some of the bags had burst and the place stank of garbage.

"We'd better check and see if there have been complaints by the neighbors," Burgess said, making a note.

They pulled in along the curb behind the vehicles. Before Perry had the engine off, the porch door flew open and a shirtless red-faced man with long, greasy hair and a torso so heavily tattooed it looked like the funny papers stormed down the walk. He had a knife in a sheath on his belt. He was at least 6' 6" and an easy 350. "Get that shit-heap the fuck outta here! You're blocking my truck." He pounded on the hood with a basketball-sized fist.

Burgess stared calmly at the hammering fist. "That's public property," he said.

"I don't give a good goddamn! You're blocking my truck."

"You live here?"

"Wadda you think? I park my truck on somebody else's lawn?"

"Your mother home?"

"Last I heard, she was moanin' and carryin' on like she gave a damn about that little twerp." Abruptly, the man turned and went back inside.

Burgess followed, unsurprised. Nothing he'd ever heard about the family had led him to expect civilized behavior. They went up steps jumbled with litter—empty fast-food wrappers topped a thick layer of cigarette butts, discarded matchbooks, candy wrappers, and canine feces. The entrance was through a glassed-in sun porch shared by bulging trash bags and two German Shepherds.

What they'd find inside wouldn't be much different. People who live like pigs don't stop at the door to the sty. He'd seen too much in twenty-eight years to be very shocked by the squalor in which some people lived. So he wouldn't be shocked. But on behalf of Timmy Watts, he would be angry. He raised a fist and knocked. Waited no more than a breath, and knocked again. Suddenly, the door flew open. An old man stood there, poking absently at his mouth with a toothpick. Delinsky's description had been right on the mark. A dried up little twist of a man.

Burgess showed his badge. "Detective Sergeant Burgess, Portland Police. Detective Perry. About your son, Timothy. May we come in?"

The man stepped back, his head bobbing in a nod. No reaction on his face. Cops on the doorstep were common in this house. "Mother's the one you want to see. She's through here." He jerked his skinny neck, pointing with his chin. "She's takin' this real hard. They hadda give her drugs." He stepped over a dog and disappeared down a dark hallway.

Burgess followed, his hand on the butt of his gun. He'd seen bad, but this was beyond squalid. Obviously, no one took the dogs out. They simply did their business wherever they happened to be. The stench, simmered by the damp summer heat, was worse than a six-day corpse. He pulled out a tube of Vick's, touched up his nostrils, and passed it to Perry.

In a back bedroom, the woman who had wiped out his knee lay on the bed, her housedress rucked up to her waist, a fan at her feet. Her vast lard-white thighs were roped with bulging veins and explosions of purple spider webs. "The police, Mother," Pap Watts announced.

She snatched a tissue from the box beside her. "Catch him, officers. Catch the monster who did this to my baby!" The television on the dresser was showing cartoons.

There was no place to sit. The only chair was occupied by a sullen woman with a rat's nest of black hair, nursing a filthy baby. She glanced at them, then shifted her eyes back to the television.

Burgess leaned against the wall, wondering which would terminate the interview first—his knee or the overwhelming sense that he was going to be sick. He was an experienced professional here to collect facts from a victim's family, but envisioning that brutalized child in the park living in this hell hole sickened him almost beyond endurance.

"Mrs. Watts," he pulled out his notebook, "when did you last see your son Timmy?"

"Last night," she said mournfully.

"What time last night?"

She struggled to sit up and, perhaps remembering that being a grieving mother demanded a certain dignity, tugged her dress over her thighs. "Hanged if I know," she said. "He was always in and out. Playing with the neighborhood kids. Summertime, you know."

"What time does he usually go to bed?"

She pondered the question. "Ain't got a bedtime. Just goes up when he's tired."

"Did he sleep here last night?"

Mother Watts looked at the other woman. "Shauna, you see Timmy come in last night?"

The woman glared at her mother. "Fuck, no," she said. "I was busy with the baby, then I hadda work."

"What about earlier, Mrs. Watts?" Burgess said. "When did you last see him?"

"Dinner time, maybe."

"Timmy was home for dinner? What time was that?"

"I dunno if he was home. Lotta times, he ate at a friend's. You know how kids are."

"You don't recall?"

She shook her head. "'fraid I don't."

"What did you have for dinner last night?"

"I don't recall," she said. "Pizza, maybe?"

"Did you fix Timmy's dinner?" She shook her head. "Who normally gives him dinner?"

"Ain't no normal," she said.

They could have burned that sentiment into a board and hung it over the front door. "What about other family members? Who would have been home who might remember?"

"Maybe Pap can help you. Boy was always in and out. I just don't recall..."

This family was well versed in not recalling. "Pap was home last night? He might have seen Timmy?"

She reconsidered. "No. Now that I remember, Pap was playing cards with friends."

"What about your other children?"

Her face went vacant as she sorted through the residents. "Lloyd's girlfriend, Darlene, maybe? She kind of took a fancy to Timmy. Used to read to him and stuff." She turned to her daughter. "Shauna? Was Darlene around last night?"

"I told you already," the girl said in a bored voice. "I was busy with the baby, then I hadda work. Ask Pap. Or Lloyd. I think he's upstairs asleep. Darlene's workin'."

This was getting them a lot of nowhere. "Let's back up," Burgess said, still addressing the mother. "When do you last remember seeing him... that you're sure of?"

"I can't rightly say."

"What about the kids he played with? Can you give me some names?"

"Sam and Davey. They're two doors down." She pointed toward the left. "Mother's a real bitch, but Timmy liked to go there. Otherwise?" She shook her head. "There was a whole pack of 'em, boys and girls. Ran around like wild Indians."

"What about adults? Were there grown-ups he was friendly with? Liked to spend time with?"

"Everybody loved Timmy," she said. She sounded a little surprised and for the first time, there was a touch of real sadness in her voice.

"Can you give me some names?"

"'fraid not."

Burgess looked at Perry. They were getting nothing here but a big goddamned zero. It made the door-to-door that much more important, the hope of finding someone who'd seen the child yesterday. Tell some bleeding heart member of the GP about the Watts's reaction and you'd get tutt-tutting disbelief and the assertion that it surely
must
be grief. Tell 'em about the house, and they'd say 'no way.' Sometimes he wished he'd kept pictures, but unless it was a crime scene, that would invade people's privacy.