The Angel of Knowlton Park (9 page)

"How old was Timmy?"

She had to think about that, too. "He was eight," she said, finally. "Gonna be nine in October. Third grade in the fall." She sighed and closed her eyes, exhausted by the strain of using her brain for something legitimate.

Burgess turned to the woman on the chair. "Where does Darlene work?"

"She's a toll taker. Out there at Exit Eight."

The answer surprised him. "And her last name is?"

"Packer."

"Thank you. Do you suppose you could show us Timmy's room?"

"Ain't got a room."

"Where he slept," Burgess amended.

"Pap'll show you. He ain't busy." She shifted her eyes back to the screen.

Burgess closed his notebook and forced out the words, usually so hard to speak in the face of people's grief, that here were hard to say in the face of such indifference. "Thank you for your time, Mrs. Watts. We're very sorry about your loss. You know we'll do our best to find out who did it."

"Who did it?" She roused herself and stared at him. "You don't know who did it? It was that faggot lives over by the park. One that drives a Saab? He's had his eye on Timmy ever since he moved in. Timmy said so. Said the man invited him in, give him pizza, and made him look at dirty pictures. Timmy loved pizza. Cheese pizza. But Timmy didn't like to go there. He was afraid of that dog. It bit him once. Timmy's brother, Dwayne, he hadda go over there, give that faggot a piece of his mind. We didn't have no trouble with him bothering Timmy after that. But I bet it was him."

Burgess opened his notebook again. "What makes you think the man by the park might be involved?"

"That's what faggots do, ain't it? Screw little boys."

"You think you know who killed your boy, but you weren't going to mention it?"

"Didn't ask, did ya? I figured you knew."

"You have any reason to think Timmy was at this man's house last night?"

Another mountainous shrug. "Said he was gonna have pizza with a friend."

So now she recalled. "This man by the park. Mr. Osborne. Was he the only person around who ever gave Timmy pizza?"

"Shit no. Everybody give Timmy pizza. People knew he loved it."

"So you don't know that Timmy was at this man's house?"

She shook her head. "Do you have any idea where Timmy was last night?"

"I'll bet it was with that faggot."

What kind of mother lets her child wander unsupervised in a neighborhood where she believes there's a pedophile? He wondered whom the boy might have gone to for comfort in a house like this? Was overcome, for a moment, with a childish desire to turn back the clock. To make it yesterday, when someone could still have rescued Timmy Watts. He didn't stay there long. "Do you know of anyone else around here who might have harmed Timmy?"

"Everyone loved him."

God! It was like a knife in his
own
guts. This great sow could actually lie there and say, without irony, that her child had been loved by everyone. Someone had even loved him enough to kill him. Then again, thinking about the tender folds of the blue blanket, maybe she was right. Maybe someone had loved him to death.

"Do you have any idea why Timmy might have wanted to run away from home?"

"No call for that," she grunted, hardly considering the question. "He wasn't hardly here as it was."

"He ever run away before?"

"He went to see Iris once."

He tried the friends question again. "Who did he hang out with?"

The big hands moved indifferently through the air. "I can't rightly say."

"Do you mind if we take a look at Timmy's room?"

"Ain't got a room. I told you." Shauna, from her chair.

"He's got a corner, up to the attic," Mrs. Watts said. "Iris fixed it up for him real nice. You can go on up. Don't need no one to show you." She made a sound that was somewhere between a sob and moan, and closed her eyes. Before they'd left the room, she was snoring.

Chapter 7

Up one flight of stairs and then another, jarring his knee and making him want to go down and twist
her
goddamned knee, see how
she
liked it. The attic was hot enough to cook eggs on the floor and mostly as cluttered as the rest of the house, but it wasn't as dirty. Maybe the dogs didn't like the steep staircase. One small corner was neat. A mattress on the floor was covered by a faded quilt with cars and trucks. A fuzzy yellow backpack made from a character he didn't recognize served as the pillow. There was a scrap of green rug. Stacked wooden produce crates, painted white, served as a dresser and separated the space from the chaos beyond.

On another painted crate beside the mattress was a lamp shaped like a giant crayon, a photograph, and a small, neat stack of books. Burgess looked at the meager space life had allotted Timmy Watts—the pathetically small stack of clothes, shabby sneakers, a plastic crate holding a few toys, including a red wooden car with three wheels and a small box of crayons, and his throat got tight. Crumpled shorts lay on the rug beside threadbare socks and a stained dinosaur tee shirt. Otherwise, everything was neat, suggesting Timmy had changed in a hurry.

"Oh, Jesus," Stan Perry muttered behind him. "Oh, sweet Jesus. He gets a miserable little corner of the friggin' attic! This case, Joe... this case... I've seen plenty, but this one could break your heart."

"It's not doing mine much good," Burgess agreed. "But look. This isn't like downstairs. It's clean. Painted. Someone took some time here." He stayed outside Timmy's corner, taking it all in, not ready to touch anything. A person's private space, even a child's, could tell him a lot. This told him that Timmy Watts had been neat for a small child. Particular about his space.

He sucked in a breath, knowing the pain in his chest wasn't just from breathing scorching, dusty air. "Someone loved the poor little thing after all."

"Iris," Perry said. "The deaf sister. His mother said Iris fixed it up."

"I wonder if anyone's thought to tell her, or if they'd even bother," Burgess said. "It would be awful for her to read it in the papers."

"Being deaf in this household was probably an advantage."

"Even Helen Keller had a nose."

Burgess was ready to enter Timmy's corner now. He wished Perry would be quiet, or that he were alone. He believed if he listened carefully enough, this place would tell him about Timmy Watts. But he couldn't listen if Perry kept talking. "Can you give me a few minutes, Stan? Maybe talk with Mr. Watts, see if he has any recollection of Timmy's day yesterday? And any information about the boy's friends. Find out how to contact Iris."

Perry went, as glad to be released as Burgess was to have him go, despite the stench below. They both knew it didn't take two detectives to go over that small area. That Burgess worked best alone. Perry was good at the people stuff, at getting them talking. He was more use downstairs. It was hard to strike the necessary balance between investigative caution and cop's intuition. Alone in the room, Burgess could sense things, learn about Timmy Watts by the stuff he kept and how he arranged it, but in an era when so many cases were made or broken based on evidence, vital evidence was collected under the watchful eyes of another cop. It might be months, even years down the road before they knew what mattered.

As Perry's footsteps retreated, Burgess sat down on the mattress and massaged his knee. Legwork, he thought ironically, was what solved cases like this. Watchful, persistent legwork. Going through the neighborhood like a human filter, talking to people, snagging the important bits, then fitting them together like the pieces of a puzzle. Was the fact that he was starting with only one good leg a sign? Sighing, he pulled on gloves and picked up the stack of books.

He realized, thumbing through them, that he had very little idea what Timmy Watts had been like. In an ordinary case, if there was such a thing as an ordinary child murder, there would be family members who could talk about the child—his personality, his friends, his schedule. They might talk through tears, around the lumps in their throats, and their talk might be punctuated with long, terrible silences broken by sobs and shudders as the child was remembered, but they would talk. Here, his brother, only hours after the death was discovered, scoffed at the notion that someone had cared about the little twerp. His sister couldn't tear her eyes from the TV. His mother couldn't recall when she'd last seen him.

The books were worn and tired, with price stickers from the Salvation Army and yard sales, except for one pristine, hardcover copy of
The Polar Express,
inscribed "Merry Christmas to Timmy from The McBrides," two coloring books labeled "frum Iris" in a child's labored printing, and a copy of
Miss Rhumphius
from Grace Johnston. He held them by their spines and riffled through the pages. Nothing fell out except a note from Timmy's teacher saying he often dozed off in school and urging that he be put on a more regular schedule.

Burgess checked the pockets of the few pairs of pants and shorts. Found some candy wrappers, elastics, a movie ticket and a stubby pencil with the name of a miniature golf course. Under the clothes, he found a heart-shaped candy box which contained Timmy's treasures—a small, hand-held game with a dead battery, some beach glass, a Star Wars figure, two dollar bills, some letters and postcards which appeared to be from Iris, alphabet letters from an old keyboard, and a lethal-looking pocket knife.

Burgess sat back down on the bed and prepared duplicate receipts for items taken, one for himself and one for the family, listing the things from the pockets, the teacher's note, and the contents of the treasure box. It was tedious, but many a criminal has walked because some cop was too lazy, rushed, or careless to document evidence or maintain the chain of custody.

Then he picked up the photograph. There was a resemblance to the two women downstairs, but it was faint. The girl in the photo—he assumed it was Iris—was plain and slight, but there was something courageous in the lift of her chin, a vital warmth in her smile. Finally, a family member he looked forward to meeting.

There were footsteps on the stairs and Perry came in. "Anything?" Burgess asked.

Perry shook his head. "Pap thinks maybe Timmy was home for lunch yesterday, but he can't swear to it."

"You talk to the brother? Dwayne?"

"He's gone out."

"Without his truck?" Perry shrugged. "What about... what's his name? Lloyd?"

"Sleeping. I tried, but I don't think Gabriel's horn would rouse him."

"Detective Perry, I'm going to search the room now."

Methodically, he went through it, collecting the things he'd already identified—the stuff from the boy's pockets, the treasure box, the note. Then, though these were not usual hiding places for a child this young, he checked underneath the backpack-pillow and under the mattress. The child had lived in a household where being secretive was the norm, as natural as failing to recall the events of a given day or the whereabouts of any family member.

Under the pillow, he found a smooth rock with the word "love" carved into it. Handling it carefully by the edges, he slipped it into an envelope and added it to his inventory. Under the mattress, he found nothing. Finally, he unzipped the pack. He took out a ratty beach towel and bathing suit. Below was a Ziploc bag of what looked like dirty rock candy.

He sighed, knowing, even before he unzipped the bag and inhaled the foul stink, what he'd found. What was it doing in a child's room, even in this house? Had Timmy taken it by accident, thinking it was candy, then been afraid to put it back? Had his taking it, or even knowing about it, had something to do with his death? He looked at Perry. "What smells like cat piss, looks like dirty crystals, and doesn't belong in a child's room?"

With a gloved hand, Perry took the bag by the corner, and sniffed. "Crystal meth?"

"How do we list this on an inventory of items taken from a child's room?"

"Think we oughta call Vince? Get a warrant?"

"We'll talk to him when we get to the station," Burgess said. "We've got permission to search."

"I'd like to take this house apart."

"You think he was killed here?"

"Those stab wounds... that level of violence. That's someone out of control... could be a shithead on speed," Perry said.