Redemption (A Joe Burgess Mystery, Book 3) (15 page)

"No, thanks," Burgess said, settling down beside him. "I'm working."

It was tempting. Something about the quiet darkness and sitting here so close to the last place he'd been with Reggie, but he'd already gotten one buzz on out at Clay Libby's farm and another at dinner with Chris. He didn't think his system was up to any more. Better to just get home and grab some sleep. He'd be heading home soon. This was a stop, not a visit.

"I miss him, you know?" Jim said. "He's only gone what, two, three days, and it seems like forever. Reggie was just always there for people. He'd got a kind word or some advice. Sometimes, nights like this when I couldn't sleep, he'd just sit out here with me. Not saying anything much. Just here and that was enough."

Jim stared up at the sky, where some clouds were scudding across a sickle moon. "You know how people think of us, Joe. Dirty winos. Useless street people. Like we're not as human as them." The quilt rose and fell with his shrug. "Reggie could make me feel like I still mattered. I'd be down and he'd say, 'Jim, you still got family.' Which, I've gotta be grateful, I do."

There was a rustle as he sipped from the bag. The younger guys didn't bother to hide their bottles, but for the older guys, like Jim, it was a nod toward propriety. "You know, some of the guys have been wondering is there going to be a service or something. Whether his family's going to do that for him. We'd like to pay our respects."

"When I know, you'll know," Burgess said. He'd know, since it looked like it would to be up to him and Clay to make it happen. He let some time pass, then said, "The guy across the hall from Reggie, what's his name, Kevin? Tell me about him."

"Oh, Kev's okay."

"Okay's not very helpful, is it, Jim? And it's pretty lukewarm."

Burgess debated whether to give Jim some version of the truth. Whether Jim could keep it to himself. Decided it was okay either way. It might not be such a bad thing if the story got around, if people on the street started wondering about Reggie. Sometimes the invisible people, the disposable ones whom the better situated tried to ignore or really didn't see, noticed a lot.

"I'm starting to think what happened to Reggie might not be an accident." He let that percolate, then repeated his question. "So, this guy Kevin. Who is he?"

"I don't know. He hasn't been around very long," Jim said. "Comes from down Massachusetts somewhere. I don't know much about him. He kinda keeps to himself, except he and Reggie were sorta friends. I think they worked together."

"Oh, yeah. Reggie's work. You remembered anything about that? Where he was working? Who he was working for?"

"Nope. Sorry, Joe. Reggie was kind of secretive about that." His arm moved and the bag rustled. "He never said why. I thought maybe he didn't want the rest of us going after his job."

"Secretive? Like how?"

"Like I asked him coupla times where he was working, thinking maybe there might be something for me, and he just changed the subject. Same thing when I asked was he getting paid decent. Or how he got that job. Because, you know, I wouldn't mind having a job. Make a little money, buy Diane and the grandkids something nice for Christmas. Be a good thing after all they do for me."

"But Reggie wouldn't tell you?" That didn't sound like Reggie. He'd always been so willing to share. But if he'd been working under the table, and from what Clay said about him being paid in cash, it sounded that way, maybe the employer didn't want it to get around and Reggie was just respecting that. Reggie was always respectful of other people's boundaries. Probably because the world his illness forced him to inhabit was so disrespectful of his.

"How long has Kevin been living here?"

Jim looked up at the sky again, considering. "Couple months. I think. Maybe not so long. I get a little vague about time. I think he moved in around the time Reggie came back from his brother's place, because it was on a day that Diane took me along when she took the kids school shopping." He scratched his head. "Funny how I tell time by those kids, huh? But I dunno. It might have been when she was taking 'em Halloween shopping."

"About Reggie's job. Chub said you saw a truck picking him up?" Jim nodded. "You notice any writing on it? Maybe a logo or something?"

"Not that I recall. Just a big gray truck. Double cab. Maybe a couple guys in it. Driver and one other. I dunno. Diane might remember something. She's real observant. My mind..." Jim tapped a finger against his head. "It sure isn't like it used to be. I used to be real good with numbers, Joe. You'd never believe it now, but I was."

Burgess had been down this road before. Once Jim got going on his lost life, he'd stay on the subject for hours. It was sad, and people needed listening to, but Burgess had done his share of listening to this story. It was late. If he couldn't get information, he should sleep.

"You notice anything about the driver? Was it always the same man?"

"Sorry, Joe. Like I said. My brain..." Jim sounded mournful. Burgess didn't know if it was from missing Reggie or from missing the keen mind he'd once possessed. He'd never been sure whether alcoholics whose minds were affected, those guys who told the same stories over and over, were aware of what they did and couldn't control it or they simply didn't recognize the endless loop of repetition.

"But you think it was a truck with a guy driving. And it picked him up regularly?" Jim nodded. "You see Reggie going to work on Friday?"

"I know I saw him Thursday. I'm not so sure about Friday. Diane might know. I think she was here on Friday to bring me some groceries. She does that. Diane's real good to me. She brought things to Reggie sometimes. She felt sorry because his own kid wasn't nice to him."

"How did she know his son wasn't nice?"

"Oh, she saw him here, once or twice. My Diane, she's got a kind heart. She thought he was real nasty," Jim said, "which he was. Boy treated Reggie like a dog."

So Joey had visited more than once. He definitely had to find Joey and have a talk, however much Claire wanted to keep them apart. Burgess got Diane's full name, her number, and her address. "You said Kevin worked with Reggie?"

"That's what I think." Jim tilted the bottle, lowered it, and studied the sky again. "Maybe you oughta ask Chub. He remembers stuff. Or Kev. Except, I forgot. He's gone. Moved out right after you were here. Soon as that cop was sitting on Reggie's room left, Kev came down with a suitcase and a coupla boxes, some things stuffed in a pillowcase. He waits here for awhile and then a guy comes and picks him up."

"You talk to him?" Burgess asked. "Ask where he was going?"

"I guess I said hey and asked was he moving out. He said yeah. When I asked where he was going, he didn't say. He just stood there, looking down the street, like he was wondering where was his ride. But he never was much for talking. Sometimes he'd answer back if you asked, but you didn't say anything, he wouldn't." Jim's shoulders humped under the quilt. "He didn't think much of us."

"You out here when he was picked up?" Jim made an affirmative noise. "You see who it was? Anyone you recognized? Was it the same truck?"

He realized he was asking too many questions. Jim might seem coherent, but his thoughts tended to go in circles. He had trouble focusing on more than one question at a time. Burgess tried a single question. "You see who picked him up?"

Jim tapped his skull again, like he was gently prodding a thought into place. "I didn't see the guy. He never got out, but the car looked like that fancy one Reggie's kid drives. You know. That red one?"

Damn. He'd checked Joey's records and looked for a phone number, but he hadn't done a registry search. He took out his notebook and wrote that down. Check on vehicles owned by Joey and Claire. His brain was getting as bad as Jim's, and he didn't even have the excuse of alcohol. But that was okay. A detective's notebook was all important. He might get hit by a garbage truck on his way home tonight, but as long as he didn't bleed through the pages, someone else could pick it up, know where he'd been and who he'd talked to, and go right on with the case.

"So Joey's been coming around?" he said.

"Joey. That's Reggie's kid?"

"Yeah. Joey. Big handsome dark-haired kid?"

"He's been here a few times," Jim said. "Once, when Reggie was just back from Clay's place, he came. The kid, I mean. I was thinking it was so nice 'cuz I knew that Reggie and him hadn't been close. Only I guess it didn't go so well. They went up to Reggie's room and I could hear him hollering at Reggie. I couldn't get much of it 'cuz I was sitting out here and they were working on the street up there to the corner. Making a hell of a racket."

Jim gave him a coy look and Burgess realized that whatever Jim knew, it was going to get doled out slowly so Burgess would stay and talk. Even a cop for company was better than nothing when it was late and the bottle was empty, when one of the few people who'd listen to you was gone and you couldn't sleep.

"Tell me what you did hear."

"He said 'Why can't you just let me have it now when it's gonna be mine anyway one of these days?' Then Reggie said something but it was so soft I couldn't hear it, but whatever it was, it made the kid some mad. He said something about 'what Claire wants,' then came slamming down the stairs, got into that car, and peeled out. Didn't look around or anything, just pulled out and took off. Chub was crossing the street and he had to jump out of the way. You ask him, he'll tell you. Chub gets knocked on his ass and that kid flips him the bird, doesn't even slow to see if he's okay. Might be Reggie's kid, but it doesn't seem like there's much of Reggie in him."

"Joey was driving a red car, like the one that picked up Kev yesterday?"

"Yeah. Can't say for sure that it's the same one, though." Jim tapped his skull. "You know, I used to be so good at remembering things. And I was real good with numbers. I ever tell you that?"

"You did, Jim," Burgess said. He was tired. Without the benefit of a cushion of alcohol like Jim had, the wooden step was getting uncomfortable. "You said you thought they worked together. When Reggie went to work, did Kev go, too?"

Jim cleared his throat. "Now that's odd, you know?" he said. "I thought they worked together, but Kev never went in the same time as Reggie. Same truck would come pick him up, Reggie, I mean, but it came later. Not every day, either. So maybe whoever they worked for had two places, Kev worked at one and Reggie at the other."

The quilt shifted as he lifted his shoulders, lowered them again, and tilted up the bottle. Then he made a disgusted sound, shook the bottle, and set it down hard on the step. "I miss him, Joe. You know? It's only been what? Two, three days, and already, it seems like so long. Gonna be an awful long winter without Reggie. He was always good for a chat. Maybe had used some of that bottle money for a pint. Or we'd sit in his room and watch his TV. Play cards. He was easy to get on with, Reggie was. And generous. Not like some. That guy, Kev, now. He was okay to have in the house 'cuz he was quiet and all, and we like to keep this a quiet place. But he never shared nothing. He had a bottle, he drank it all himself. He got a pizza or something, he'd go in his room and close the door."

Jim held up the bottle. "This one, now. He left this behind in his room, still half full. That kinda surprised me, him wasting any liquor. But maybe he was in such a hurry he forgot. He didn't take all his stuff." He tipped the bottle again, snorted in disgust when nothing came out, and set it on the step beside his foot. "Maybe he's coming back. If he is, he'll be disappointed." He looked at Burgess. "You don't have a bottle on you, do you, Joe?"

"I don't think that would down well with my bosses, Jim, me driving around with a bottle in the truck."

"Probly not." Jim stood and stretched. "Guess I'll call it a night." He clumped up the steps and went inside.

Burgess had a couple of questions about the place. About Kev's room. Figured he'd go inside and take a look. If he saw anything of interest, he could always come back with a warrant. He picked up the bottle, which might well have Kevin's fingerprints on it—people, in his experience, didn't always use their real names—and put it in the Explorer. Then he went quietly inside and up the stairs to where the door of Reggie's room was closed and locked and marked with a police seal.

Kevin's room stood open.

Someone had packed in a hurry. Drawers were pulled out and hangers jumbled on the closet floor. Some paperbacks and magazines, some mostly empty toiletries, and some extremely worn clothes had been left. An old pair of athletic shoes. None of the clothes had anything in their pockets. There was a little tired takeout in the fridge. If any food had been left in the cupboards, it was gone now. There was a blanket but no sheets, pillows but no pillow cases. Nothing under the mattress, taped to the bottom of the dresser drawers or the back of the dresser.

Burgess pulled on gloves and looked through the wastebasket. It was a wasteland indeed. Nothing to suggest an active human life. No mail. Nothing with an address label. No store receipts to provide a date and time. No handwriting or personal notes. A brown paper bag. Two empty red plastic cups which might have meant drinks on two separate occasions or a visitor. Burgess put them in the empty paper bag. The only interesting thing was a confetti of shredded envelope with a piece of a logo in the corner, interesting only because the occupant had taken the time to shred it. He slipped the piece with the logo into his pocket.