Redemption (A Joe Burgess Mystery, Book 3) (6 page)

She looked around the featureless room, then back at him, still without recognition, keeping up a steady rocking on her chair. "Reggie's missing. I've been looking for him since Thursday." She hesitated. "I think it was Thursday. We had a..." She twisted a long strand of hair around her finger, wound it tight, and let it go. Something girls did, but few grown women. "Missing. We had a date." She smiled brightly, like a child amused by something. "Friday we always have a date."

She studied him curiously, squinting as if that would let her see him clearly, and lowered her voice. "On Friday, you know, we have sex."

"So you didn't see him Friday for your date. Do you remember when you did see him?"

"Sex," she repeated, rubbing her hands along her thighs from knee to hip, hip to knee, and rocking. It made him dizzy to watch. "On Friday we have sex." Her face got sad. Even carrying too much weight and with her thick auburn hair going gray, it was possible to see the vibrantly attractive woman she had once been. "I miss Reggie."

"Maura, when did you last see Reggie?"

"Last?" She tipped her head to the side, like a bird studying something. Then tipped it the other way, considering. "Maybe Tuesday? We had... dinner? At the church. Good dinner, too. Chicken and pie."

Maybe someone there had noticed Reggie. Talked with him. "Which church, Maura? Do you remember which church?"

"I think it was white." Her humming was a low vibration, like a speaker might make when the wire is loose. No matter, he could find out which church served dinner to the homeless on Tuesday. If it really was Tuesday.

"Do you know where you are right now?" he asked.

She studied the room. "Not hospital," she said.

"No. Not hospital. You're at the police department. You came here to ask about Reggie. Do you remember? You came to ask us if something had happened to Reggie." He gave that a minute to register. "What made you think something might have happened to him?"

"He didn't come on Friday. I got dressed. I fixed..." She considered as she rocked. "Food. Dinner. I fixed Reggie's favorite." She searched for the word, then said, with a trill of delight, "Meatloaf." She leaned forward and whispered, "My Reggie loves meatloaf."

"So you made meatloaf on Friday and Reggie didn't come. That's sad. You must have been disappointed."

Her head bobbed. "Maura was very sad. Do you think he didn't come because of the meatloaf?" When Burgess didn't respond, she said, "Because Reggie was sick. His stomach was hurting him. Maybe I did wrong. Maybe meatloaf was bad for Reggie."

She folded her hands over her own stomach and rocked. "Sometimes Reggie hurt so much he cried. He went to see the doctor but he wouldn't tell me what the doctor said." She shook her head. "He had a friend who hurt like that and he died. Reggie was afraid he'd die, too."

"Reggie wouldn't tell you what the doctor said?" Instead of answering, Maura started humming a tune vaguely recognizable as a hymn.

Was any of this useful? Was she suggesting that Reggie might have gone into the sea to end some terrible pain? Burgess didn't know. What he did know was that talking about stomachs made him think of his own, how empty it was. He needed coffee and food. It was afternoon. He'd missed breakfast, his plans to eat with Nina and Neddy derailed, spent hours at the harbor, gone from there to Reggie's place.

Another piece of the cop's reality. The public thought that cops spent their lives eating free donuts and drinking free coffee, when sometimes that donut and coffee were the only break—and food—in an eighteen-hour day, a few minutes spent regrouping between one grueling service call and another. They usually weren't free, either. Little came free these days. You took free stuff, people expected breaks you couldn't give them.

He pushed back his chair. "I'm going to get some coffee. You want some, Maura?"

"Hot chocolate," she said. "Hot hot hot hot chocolate." She switched her hum to The Beatles. "Oh yes. Maura would love hot chocolate. And something sweet. Danish, maybe?" She looked a little anxious, clutching at her sweater. "You'll bring it to me? I can wait right here?"

He patted her shoulder. "Sure, Maura, sure. I'll bring it to you. You wait right here." She was afraid that it was just a ploy to get her out of the building. Move her along to another place where she'd become someone else's problem. Street people got used to being moved along.

He pushed back and left the room. Across the detective's bay, he saw Stan talking to Rick Chaplin, and walked over. Chaplin was an incredibly fit-looking man, built like a runner. He still had a summer tan and his longish hair was streaked with blond. He smiled when Burgess approached and held out a hand. "Sergeant. Tough business this morning."

"You got that right. Find anything down there?"

"Brought in a couple things," Chaplin said. "A towel. A shoe. A cinderblock. All near to where the body was." He shrugged. "Ya never know. Figured I collect 'em, let you clever detectives decide if they're important." He grinned at Burgess, "And yes, I did get your soil and water samples." For all his nonchalant posing and surfer dude looks, Chaplin was a careful and thorough cop.

"Thanks, Rick," Burgess said. "Better to be safe." A towel, a shoe, and a cinderblock. Very interesting. "Just one shoe?"

"Just one. Brand new, too. We looked but we didn't find another. Body had no shoes."

Not a bad idea to search the waterfront, see if the other shoe was there. "Already on it, Joe," Perry said. "Got a couple people down there looking around, checking the trash. Tide goes down again, we'll do the shore, too, if there's enough light."

"I'm going for a sandwich." He stopped on his way out of the building and called Robeck, hoping he was still at Reggie's. Got a brisk, "Robeck."

"It's Burgess. You still at Reggie's?"

"Just leaving, sir."

"Before you go, can you check the shoes in the closet, see what size Reggie wore?"

"I'm on it, sir."

Burgess snapped his phone shut and lumbered off, an aging carnivore in search of food. Following the detective's rule, eat when you can, he got a substantial cheesesteak sub and a large coffee for himself, hot chocolate and two pastries for Maura. He might think, as any judgmental person would, that she'd be better off eating something healthy, but it was what she wanted. Sugar and chocolate were comforting, and given the news he was about to deliver, she would need all the comfort she could get.

He gulped the sandwich at his desk, then carried her food and his coffee back into the conference room. She seemed not to have moved in the time he'd been gone. Just sat there on her chair rocking and humming. "Hey, Maura," he said. "I'm back. Brought your hot chocolate."

Her vague eyes fixed on him. "You look familiar," she said.

"You know me, Maura. Joe Burgess. Reggie's friend."

She tapped a finger against her temple. "The cop?" He nodded. "Oh. I came to see you," she said.

"Well, I'm right here," he said, unwrapping the pastries and setting them in front of her. "What can I do for you?"

"Reggie," she said, leaning close. "He's gone. I came to ask if you'd seen him."

Burgess shook his head. "When's the last time you saw him?"

"Tuesday. We had dinner. Chicken. It was good." She grabbed the first pastry and stuffed half of it into her mouth.

"You haven't seen him since?"

"I always see him on Fridays. On Fridays we—"

"Have sex," Burgess finished. "But Reggie didn't show up?"

Now her hands were running up and down her thighs again and he could see that this would be an endless loop in which he'd never get any answers. Burgess tried another tack. "Jim says Reggie had a job. Do you know where he was working?"

"Cleaning job," she said. "He liked having a job. He bought me a present." She set down her pastry, pulled up the battered tote she used as a purse, and dug through it. Eventually she drew out a rectangular white box, the shiny cardboard smudged with fingerprints.

"Open it," she urged, offering it to him. Inside was a nice pair of fleece-lined deerskin gloves. "For the winter, he said. To keep me warm. You know..." She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Reggie was making money. Lots of money." She nodded solemnly, her eyes wide. "You know those people he lived with. They'd take anything. So he had it hid. Hid real good."

She kissed the box and returned it to her bag. Then she looked at Burgess, tears in her eyes. "Reggie was a good man, Joe. He didn't deserve how she treated him. Those awful letters."

For a minute, at least, she knew him. "Who is she?" Burgess asked. "The one who wrote those letters?"

"Oh, she's evil," Maura said, "A crazy woman." She laughed. "Even crazier than me. And mean. Not like Reggie's brother. It was all lies, anyway. Reggie wasn't that kind. He would never of done what she said. Reggie was a good man."

The humming grew louder as she began fiddling with her layers, fumbling with the material as she began a ritual of tightening and buttoning. Her eyes had gone vague. "I have to go now. I have to go see the police. I have to find Joe Burgess and ask him if Reggie is dead. If Reggie's gone in the harbor and he's dead."

She stared through Burgess with faraway eyes. "The police took a body out of the harbor this morning. I have to go ask them is it Reggie. You see Joe Burgess, you tell him something is wrong. Reggie didn't come on Friday."

"Maura," he said, "You've found me. Him. I am Joe Burgess."

"You are?" She studied him curiously, a bird eyeing a shiny object. "Burgess the cop?"

She shook her head as if clearing away the fog. As recognition came back into her vague eyes, he decided he'd better tell her about Reggie before she disappeared again.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Maura, but Reggie is dead. That was Reggie we took out of the harbor this morning. That's why I need to know—"

Her scream was sudden and explosive. She jumped out of her chair, clapped her hands over her ears, tipped her face toward the ceiling and howled—a pure, instinctive, animal expression of the grief he'd been feeling since Dr. Lee lifted the matted hair and revealed Reggie's face. He wanted to let go. Join her. Let another voice rise in anger and sorrow. But this was the goddamned police department. He worked here. And cops were all about control.

He wrapped his arms around the screaming woman and pulled her tight against him. "It's okay, Maura," he whispered into the matted hair, the scent of unwashed body and unwashed clothes filling his nose. He held her, patting her back and rocking as she screamed, letting her get it out, until, just as he was sure his hearing was destroyed, she fell completely silent, like an alarm had been turned off.

The screams changed to sobs that wrenched her body like spasms. Finally, quiet, she lifted her head from his shoulder, her eyes clear again and sadder than any eyes he'd ever seen. In a church whisper, she said, "He's gone, Joe? He's really gone?" Burgess nodded.

He watched the knowledge go home. An immense shudder rocked her body. He braced himself for another bout of screaming, but she surprised him. "I'm so sorry," she said, patting his shoulder. "I know you loved him, too. So you'll find out who did it, won't you."

Chapter 4

He arranged for patrol to give Maura a ride home. Once he'd seen her into the car, he called her daughter. Even on a beautiful autumn Saturday and getting the call at home, Sheila O'Brien Lawson answered like a professional, a crisp "This is Sheila Lawson." He supposed the weekends were when realtors did much of their business, but it spoke of a world where people never relaxed. He wondered if she'd sound the same at six a.m. on a Sunday.

"Ms. Lawson, this is Detective Sergeant Joe Burgess, Portland police—"

"If this is about my mother," she cut in, "I don't want to hear it."

"Ms. Lawson, I'm calling to let you know that your mother's longtime companion, Reginald Libby, was found dead this morning. She's taking the news very hard."

"I don't know how many times I have to say this..." Crisp had become icy. "I do not want to be informed about my mother's situation. I don't care what happens to her. I tell you people that again and again. What do I have to do to make you hear it?"

You people. As if cops and social workers and ER personnel belonged to some different, and annoying, social class. Like it or not, she was her mother's next of kin, the responsible person on all kinds of legal and medical papers. Burgess expected Ms. Lawson would be getting a call from the ER sometime in the next twenty-four hours that, as her mother's guardian, she couldn't blow off. For the moment, though, he'd respect her wishes.