Redemption (A Joe Burgess Mystery, Book 3) (14 page)

"I'll do that." Burgess stood, too. "Thanks for the help, Timmy. Young Stan is a work in progress. He's a good cop. Turning out to be a really good detective, he's pulled a couple rabbits out of hats. But when it comes to women...?" He shrugged. "I'm thinking of putting a clothespin on it. At least make him tie a string around it, maybe remind him to take it easy the next time he thinks it's a good idea to whip it out. You know the old joke about the erection so big it drains all the blood from the brain?" Collins nodded. "That's Stan."

They walked down the hall, stopping outside a door labeled "Interview 1." Burgess looked through the glass. Sitting in the interview room, his shirt torn, his lip swollen, blood in his nose, and one eye black, Stan looked more like an Old Port brawler than one of Portland's finest. He was staring, slump-shouldered, at a blank TV screen.

Collins opened the door. "All right, Detective. On your feet. Your ride is here."

Stan stood, grimacing, looked past Collins, and met Burgess's eye. He turned like he was considering running away, but the room only had one door. Hauling himself together, he straightened his shoulders, tried to fix his clothes, then gave up and shambled toward Burgess, unsteady and pathetic. Maybe this was what had driven Burgess to choose life as a solitary man. The risks of passion seemed too great.

He put a hand on Stan's arm. "Say thank you to Sergeant Collins, Stan."

Stan straightened up and put out a hand. "Thank you, Sergeant. I really appreciate this. Appreciate it even more if that tape could disappear."

"What tape?" Collins said.

Stan's battered face wore a lopsided smile as he followed Burgess out to the car.

When they were rolling, Burgess asked, "You need a doctor?"

"No way."

"You don't want to be a hero," Burgess said. "I need you working this week, not home in bed moaning."

"You ever known me to stay home in bed moaning?" Perry snapped. "I ever let you down, Joe?"

"Tonight."

"Fuck!" Perry's fist slammed against the dash. He winced as blood oozed out along his torn knuckles. "You tell Vince?"

"You know I did. Timmy Collins hadn't stepped up for you, can you imagine how pissed he'd be if one of his police was in jail for banging some married woman and getting in a fight with her hubbie, and he was the last to hear?"

Catching Perry's sulky look, Burgess said, "Like it or not, the food chain is what it is, and we have to live with that. You want to keep your private life private, keep it clean."

"Shit, Joe. You don't think I meant for this to happen?"

"What I think is that you're an adrenaline junkie like the rest of us. You keep it tuned up by being a bad boy and walking on the edge, only this time, you slipped." Burgess stopped at a red light. "Look, we're all human..." The phone in his pocket buzzed. He'd forgotten to take it off vibrate. He pulled it out. "Burgess."

"You've definitely got a homicide," Dr. Lee said.

"It's after midnight on a Sunday," Burgess said. "I thought you had a wife and a family." The light turned green. He went through it, turned into a convenience store lot, shoved the truck into park. This was the news he'd been hoping he wouldn't get.

"You're answering your phone and it doesn't sound like I woke you," Lee countered. "Someone at the lab had some free time, and I was curious, so I asked her to run some tests. Went by and looked at some things myself."

"I appreciate it," Burgess said, which he did and didn't. Like he'd told Cote, they had to treat this like a suspicious death. But like he'd told Clay, what he wanted was to close this and get on with grieving. "So what have we got?"

"That bruising was pre-mortem. And the water in his lungs? It had soap scum and it was chlorinated. Your buddy drowned in a bathtub."

When Burgess didn't respond, Lee said, "I know you were hoping for an accident. Maybe you want to think hard about whether you should work this case."

Now Burgess found his voice. "Would you?"

"What do you think, Joe?"

Lee had spent too long around cops. He'd gotten in the habit of countering a question with a question. Or maybe that was how MEs were, too. "You would hang on to it," he told Lee. "Because you wouldn't trust anyone else."

"You might be right," Lee said, a tinge of amusement in his voice, like he enjoyed a nocturnal game of verbal ping-pong. "You might be wrong. We're not all as tenacious as you. I'll fax you my report in the morning. We've still got toxicology to do. Slides to look at. More stuff to come. But you've definitely got a suspicious death here, and I'd say it's more than likely a homicide. An accidental drowning where someone panicked and dumped the body in the ocean doesn't explain those bruises. Or why he was fully dressed except for shoes."

Burgess heard Lee draw a breath and then the ME sent the little plastic ball ponging back across the table. "Over to you, Joe. Good night and good luck."

"Thanks. I guess." Burgess figured tomorrow was soon enough to tell Vince about this. Not a bad thing to let the lieutenant get some sleep. Some nights he got little to none. Some nights none of them slept. He pulled back out onto the empty street.

"What was that about?" Stan said.

"Reginald Libby. ME says it looks like a homicide. He drowned in a bathtub."

"Fuck that," Stan said. "A bathtub?"

"That's what the water in his lungs says. And he's got bruises on his back and the base of his neck, like someone put a knee in the middle of his back and held him under."

"That's ugly, Joe. But why? Reggie was just a harmless street guy. Someone wanted to kill him, there are a lot simpler ways than that."

"Unless they wanted to make it look like an accident. If it was supposed to look like Reggie got intoxicated and accidentally toppled into the harbor. He was a disposable human being. Why expect the ME to take a hard look?"

"Still doesn't make sense," Stan protested. "Why kill Reggie?"

"Hey, you're the detective."

"Thought I was the screwup."

"Reggie's brother said he'd been working. Had some money stashed in his room. A thousand or more. I didn't find it when I searched and we didn't find it with the body, unless it's in the lining of his coat or something. I'll see what Wink's come up with. He was waiting for the clothes to dry."

"Money's always a motive. But for who?" Stan shifted on his seat and groaned. "Man, I am hurting. Are we working tomorrow?"

"It is tomorrow. Past tomorrow." He pulled up in front of Stan's building, a pleasant-looking, well-maintained three-unit house on a quiet street, and stopped. It didn't look like the right place for a guy like Stan. He ought to have been in a sleek singles complex with a workout room and a pool. Stan had moved in during a brief bout of domesticity and been too busy or unmotivated to leave when his girlfriend did.

Stan stayed slumped in his seat, so inert Burgess thought he'd fallen asleep. He put his hand on Stan's shoulder and rocked him gently. Stan snorted and came awake, full alert and fists up until he recognized Burgess. "Where are we?"

"In front of your house. Time for you to put your jammies on and get some beauty sleep."

Stan ran an absent hand over his face, his fingers exploring the tender mouth, blood-crusted nose. Swollen eye. His hand dropped to his lap. "Vince is gonna be pissed."

"It happens." Burgess shrugged. "Everybody makes mistakes."

"Not like this, they don't."

"Don't flatter yourself," Burgess said. "Everybody screws up. If they're lucky, the good-luck fairy, or another cop, or pure chance, bails them out. If they're unlucky, they may end up fighting to save their job. That puts you among the lucky ones. Try to remember that, okay. Maybe think twice next time, use what you know about judging people to make choices in your personal life, not just your professional one. And pay it back by cutting someone else a break some day when they need it."

"I'll bet you never screwed up like this."

"You'll never know. Now get out of my car. I need to get some sleep, too."

"You working tomorrow... today?"

"I'm working. Go upstairs. Take four Advil and a hot shower and see if you can convert yourself into something that looks professional. I don't want you dragging around 109 looking like a cat's plaything. Call me when you get up and I'll fill you in. We can sit down with Wink, go over the file, work out some strategies."

"Wink have a home or does he just hang under the counter like a bat?"

Burgess had forgotten that today, Monday, was a holiday. The politically incorrect celebration of the arrival of Europeans on the North American continent. The "discovery" of America. The weatherman was promising mild temperatures. Another perfect day for leaf-peeping and family outings. A day when Wink, who actually did have a wife, though he rarely mentioned her, should be home, relaxing. When Chris's face, so happy earlier this evening, would be sad as he dressed and left. It didn't always help that he'd met her during a homicide investigation. She knew what he did and how dedicated he was. That didn't keep her from being human.

The bay would be quiet. Everyone taking the day off who could. It would be an excellent day for sitting down with his notes, and Reggie's clothes, and the stuff he'd taken from Reggie's room, and seeing what it all had to tell him. A good day for trying harder to tie down Reggie's last day.

It was clear that he would have to open the box of demons in case Reggie had put something in there. Opening that box was best done in daylight. Sitting at his desk at this time of night, the demons could get him, too. He wanted to keep their past as much in the past as possible, not open himself up to memories. Sometimes just a whiff of rotting vegetation or a car backfiring across town was enough. With the crippling suddenness of a stroke, he'd be lost to these times and fully back in those. He did not want to go there. But the box was waiting.

He took the box into the conference room, snapped on the too-bright lights, and spread out the contents. Several of those black letters from Star Goodall. Paperwork about his disability and his many hospitalizations. Letters. Photographs of Reggie and Claire in happier times, and pictures of Joey at every stage. At the bottom—demons. Dozens of photographs of the horrors they'd seen, the wallpaper inside Reggie's head since he was nineteen. Grotesque, God-awful scenes of death. And at the bottom of that stack, The Boy.

The Boy was a little one-legged Vietnamese boy they'd found standing in abandoned village, leaning on his crutch, waiting patiently for someone to return. No one was going to be coming back. The VC had killed them all. Reggie had given the boy some water and then some food, and for the rest of the afternoon, the boy had stuck to him like glue. When they left the village a day later, The Boy had come along, hopping along like a little cricket with his crutch and his one sandaled foot.

Nobody knew what to do with him, so they'd let him tag along. Back at camp, he'd stuck by Reggie's side and slept beside him at night. It had gone on like that, the brass making plans to find someplace to send the child, the realities of war interfering, until The Boy had become almost a part of the landscape. A week passed, then two. The Boy would wait for them when they were on patrol, his bright little face by the perimeter for their return, his high voice trilling, "Reggie," as they marched in.

Until they were gone two days. Then The Boy couldn't wait. When he saw them coming, he dodged past the sentry and took a shortcut across the field to meet them. For security, the camp was ringed with mines. One way in, one way out. Even as Reggie and the rest of them were screaming, "Boy! No! No!" the little crutch came down on a mine. In Reggie's box of demons, he had photographs of The Boy's head, hand, leg, and the remnants of the crutch. The hand and leg looked like dirty red rags.

Chapter 10

Going home, he detoured past Reggie's place. It was a habit he'd had for years. A way of checking up on Reggie, making sure he was okay. When he wasn't tangled up with his demons, Reggie had been a good sounding board, and straight or not, had helped remind Burgess why he'd chosen the path he'd taken. The habits of decades die hard.

Despite the ungodly hour and the night's chill, Jim sat on the steps, huddled in a worn quilt, smoking. He didn't seem surprised when Burgess got out of the truck. Just patted the step beside him and offered the bottle.