Playing God (48 page)

After an hour he walked into the kitchen, deliberately passing the bourbon bottle, and called Kyle. "Terry? Joe. How you doing?"

"I'm pretty bummed. Wanda came with the kids, took a look at me, and started to cry. That got the girls crying and there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. I can't get out of bed with this leg. Couldn't pick them up. Couldn't make myself heard over the racket she was making. No matter what I said, she wouldn't get a grip. Just kept bawling. I tried to get them to sit on the bed. At least let me hug them, so they could see I was still me, but she was making such a scene they asked her to leave. So I'm in a wicked good mood. You?"

"I need to talk something through. You up for another visitor?"

"Long as you promise not to cry."

"Scout's honor."

"You get some rest?"

"Fourteen hours."

"How you gonna get here? I wrecked your ride."

"You didn't wreck a damned thing. You have any idea what's going on? I haven't even called in, and nobody's called me."

"Vince had to cut Kara Allison loose. Lawyer raised holy hell. You know the drill."

He was disappointed but not surprised. "I'll call a cab. Need anything?"

"Not unless you've got a spare electric razor and a pair of track pants with those tear-away seams. I'm not going out of here tomorrow in a johnny."

"Don't want the world to see your knobby old knees?"

"Don't want the world to see my knobby old ass. See you when you get here."

He called Melia at home. Got Vince's wife, who asked politely about his condition before hollering in her best soccer coach's voice, "Vince, Joe Burgess on the phone." Gina Melia coached boy's soccer, and she'd never had a losing season. There was a silence, then she said, "I think the twins have got him tied up. I'll rescue him and have him call you back. That okay?"

"I wish I could see it."

"Drop by anytime, Joe," she said. "They'll be happy to tie you up, too. They're learning knots for cub scouts. With these guys, that's more than a little scary. Oh. Hold on. Here he comes. Torn and bleeding, but ever the cop. When you coming over for dinner? You could bring someone."

Gina'd been fixing him up for years. Never got it right. Never stopped trying. "Thanks, I'd like that," he said. "Got someone I want you to meet."

"Joe?" Vince was breathless. "What's up?"

"I was feeling out of touch. Looking for an update. Wondering about that Blazer."

"It's in the garage. Keys are on my desk in a credit union coffee cup. Help yourself. Both Bailey and Shaw will be charged, soon as they finish sorting things out."

"Like who did what?"

"Yeah. ME says the cuts looks awfully professional."

"How'd he die?"

"Drug overdose."

"Clever."

"Would have been clever," Melia corrected, "if they'd just left him in a dingy motel room somewhere, or in his car. And if they hadn't bruised the heck out of him, holding him down and shooting him up. Sometimes people get too smart for their own good. Not that it looked much like an accident, after they'd panicked and cut him up."

"They find his clothes? I want those shoes."

"Still looking. You get some rest?" Burgess made an affirmative sound. "Good. See you tomorrow. I've got to get tied up again. You don't know what you're missing."

"Guess not." Melia hadn't mentioned the girl. "You warn Kara Allison to keep herself available?"

"Told her. Told her lawyer. Told her aunt."

"But you don't have anybody watching her?"

"Should I?"

"Too late now. You find out where her mother is buried?"

"Shoot. I forgot all about it."

"Bye, Vince," he said. "Gotta go get that car." He called a cab, then took the elevator to Melia's office. Snagged the keys out of the cup. Got the interview report off Stan Perry's desk and copied down Kara Allison's address and phone number. He called there. Got no answer. Called Sarah Merchant. "It's Joe Burgess," he said. "Is Kara there?" Silence. "You know where she is?"

"No."

"What about Randall Noyes?" Silence. He'd had more animated conversations with half-asleep toll takers on the highway. "Where is your sister buried?" Surprised, she told him. "Thanks," he said.

"Wait. Are you all right?"

He didn't dignify the question with an answer. He checked his In box, just in case someone had dropped off a confession or some vital piece of evidence while he was sleeping. There was no confession, but Dani Letorneau, who wasn't supposed to be working, had left him a stack of photographs with a note that said: "Take a look at these." What she wanted him to take a look at was a series of blurred footprints, made by high-heeled shoes, going away from the car door. He studied them, nodded, then got up, taking the folder with him.

He went downstairs and found the Blazer. Melia hadn't been kidding. It was an interesting ride. It was a garish bright blue with loose steering and a jarring affinity for potholes, but it was wheels. He detoured to the mall to get the stuff for Kyle. Then to the hospital. Kyle was watching TV, looking mournful. He brightened when he saw Burgess, and lowered the volume.

"Oh goody. Presents."

"Batman p.j.s and everything you need to make fluffernutters." There were lots of cards and flowers in the room, including a big homemade one from Kyle's daughters and a bunch of Valentine balloons.

Kyle smiled wanly. "I must have died and gone to heaven."

"You're too easily pleased." He handed over the electric razor and the Adidas tracksuit with the zippered sweatshirt and the matching tear-away pants. "You are going to be a fashion plate, my man. Who gave you the balloons?"

"Young Stanley and his redhead brought them. Kid's still high as a kite."

"He ought to be. It was his idea to look in Jen Kelly's car."

"Yeah. Boy's coming along." Kyle put his toys away and gave Burgess a searching look. "I know you love me, and I am truly grateful for this stuff, but that's not why you're here. What's up?"

"Truth and consequences."

"Kara Allison. Someone thought she needed protecting badly enough to shoot you over it." Kyle shrugged. "Did she or didn't she?"

Burgess nodded, back for a second in Sarah Merchant's living room, reliving their mutual surprise when she pointed that gun at him; the sudden glaring pain when it went off. The memory sent a trickle of sweat down his spine. "She says no. You know her story? She says she planned it. Stalked Dr. Pleasant. Spent the evening with him. Made sure she left with him. She says she was there in the car, with the weapon, prepared to do it, and at the last minute, she froze and couldn't."

"Who does she say did it?"

"She says a big man with a ski mask over his face opened the car door, dragged her out, seized the weapon, and then flung her away from the car. She showed me the bruises on her knees."

"Have a seat," Kyle said. "This won't be a brief conversation."

Burgess pulled the visitor's chair close to the bed and his wounds, like a chorus of spring peepers, all began to clamor at once. He let the aches subside, trying not to think about being here in this hospital. Couldn't avoid it, talking about Kara Allison. This was where their stories intersected. Where their mothers had died. "She hated him in a way I understand too well."

"We'll get to that," Kyle said. "Let's get through her story first. Was this man someone she knew and recognized? Someone she didn't know but could describe? Or some generic bad guy, conveniently pulled out of a hat?"

"Pretty generic. It took, at most, a couple seconds. He wore a mask and gloves. He didn't speak. She said he was big and rough and had tattoos on his wrist."

"What about her accomplice? Randall Noyes?"

"The guy who made the weapon? She says no. We can't find Noyes."

"Got anything that puts O'Leary in the car?"

"Dani's footprint puts someone beside the car. And nothing to match it to. O'Leary could have followed Pleasant that night."

"And we've got O'Leary. So we can do hair matches."

"He shaves his head. And we can't do fibers unless we find his clothes. Or match the footprint without his shoes. But O'Leary had tattoos on his wrists."

Kyle shook his head slowly. Slowly was always best with a concussion. "O'Leary must have other shoes in his closet. You ask Dr. Lee whether a woman could've done it?"

"She could have. Not easily, but hate makes people strong."

"No prints on the weapon?"

"No."

"Blood splatter?"

"It wasn't a spurting wound. He drowned in his blood. And her clothes are gone."

"Convenient. You believe her, Joe?" Burgess shook his head. "But you want to believe her. Why?"

"Because I understand why she wanted to do it. And because I want her story to be true. I want her to have come to the moment and been unable to kill."

"Is there such a thing as a romantic homicide detective, do you think?"

"I don't follow you."

Kyle shrugged. "You don't work for Kara Allison," he said. "You work for Stephen Pleasant. And the people of Portland."

"And I hated Stephen Pleasant."

"Then you shouldn't have taken the case."

"I had the case before I knew it was him. I talked it over with Vince. I didn't think it would matter."

"And does it?"

Burgess shrugged. The room was dim, the building around them growing quiet as the bustle of the day gave way to the slow emptiness of night. His time of day. The time when he liked to sit alone and think. Tonight he didn't want to be alone. His mind was at war. Kristin Marks had taught him to put truth and justice first and not back down from it, even when he couldn't always win. She'd taught him that putting up the good fight mattered, even when it left you hurt and impotent and wondering how to pick yourself up to go on. Yeah. She had taught him about hurt, taking him down into the darkness with her. And she had taught him you had to go on, because the next case mattered, too, or else her death didn't.

So Stephen Pleasant's death mattered. Maybe it mattered more because he didn't want it to matter. Maybe this, and not Kristin Marks, was his true test. Because he, too, had wanted the man to die. The harder the death, the better. Sarah Merchant's fantasy about how Pleasant should have died was something they shared. Now Pleasant was dead and Burgess had a choice. Go forward with the case against Kara Allison, who'd been braver than he, and done what he, in his own darkest thoughts, had longed to do, or hang the thing on Kevin O'Leary, already conveniently dead.

"How likely was it that the car would be unlocked or that the killer would lock it when he was done?" he said. "That someone outside could have seen through iced up windows? That O'Leary wouldn't have brought his own weapon? And crime scene photos show no sign she was thrown from the car as she claims."

He cleared his throat. "The biggie? Cadaveric spasm. Kara Allison's hair, torn out by the roots, clutched in a death grip in Stephen Pleasant's hand. They had to force the hand open to do fingernail scrapings."

Kyle lay back against his pillow, his skin nearly as pale. "You wouldn't be telling me this if you didn't want to hear what I'm about to say, so fold your hands in your lap, listen to Uncle Terry, and don't argue or interrupt until I'm done."

Burgess folded his hands, bowed his head, and waited.

"Something else your mother said to me. Another sacred trust." Kyle sighed deeply. "She said to me, 'Terry, my Joseph, he's so sure he's right. Sometimes he forgets who is he and tries to play God. Remind him that he's not."

"That's not fair," Burgess said. "I'm not... I don't... I've never..."

Kyle put a finger to his lips. "Listen. What do you think you're doing right now? Your job, our job, is to get the facts. That's what we've been busting our butts to do for the last week. We just harvest the potatoes, Joe. We don't make the vodka. The French fries. The tater tots. Try to get all the potatoes. Do the best job we can. Put 'em in a basket. Bring 'em to the barn."

"I'm nothing but a goddamned manual laborer?"

"No. You're the best goddamned manual laborer. Which is why I follow you around, snapping at your heels. Because I want to be you someday, asshole. But you start playing God and it all goes down the toilet. You've got to call it like you see it. If Kara Allison did it, she did it. You start editing, you start picking and choosing because you don't like what the facts tell you, and you stop being a detective, become something else. If you want to become a private dick, find facts for money, then go there. But resign first. Because that's not what we do. We find, or we try to find, facts for truth. We don't always succeed or like what we find. And we don't always win. But it's an honorable calling. What you're thinking about doing is not."

It was the longest speech he'd ever heard Kyle make. He got up. "Thanks, Terry."

"I hope that helped."

"Actually, it hurt. But it's what my mother would have called 'good pain.' That woman, rest her soul, believed in the value of suffering."