The Angel of Knowlton Park (17 page)

Gordon led his wife to the couch and sat beside her, taking her hand. "Jules, listen to me. Whatever Timmy Watts had that resembled a normal life... a childhood... he had because of you." That only made her cry harder. She pulled her hand back, covered her face, and sobbed. The agonized sobs of someone who's lost a beloved child.

"I'm sorry," Alan Gordon said again, both helpless and accepting in the face of his wife's grief. "She wants to help. I just don't think she can do this right now."

Burgess understood. He'd been the bearer of bad news too many times. Like all cops, he hated it. He'd take a dozen ugly crime scenes, or a dozen autopsies, over one conversation like this. Over having to watch someone's terrible grief, witnessing about the worst pain that can be inflicted on the living.

His mother, who had worried about what being a police officer was doing to his soul, had asked once how he handled notifying families that someone was dead. "I understand why you have to do it. You have to do it for them. I just worry about you, Joseph," she'd said. "About what it does to you. Doesn't it bother you?"

"Of course it bothers me," he'd said. "But it's part of the job. And it's important they know the police care. Important that they have us there to help them through it. We can help, you know."

She'd nodded in her quiet, thoughtful way, her knitting needles clicking over a sweater for one of her grandchildren, and said, "Yes, but Joseph, who helps you through it?"

There were two answers to that question. "No one," and "We help each other." Oddly, though he could remember where he'd been sitting, where she was, the color of her yarn, he couldn't remember how he'd answered.

The Gordons hadn't asked him to sit, but it wasn't a lack of manners. Everything about Julie Gordon said she was a caring person. That was why he was here. He sighed, knowing that if they could have talked to him, they would have had a lot to share about Timmy Watts. "I can come back, Mr. Gordon," he said. "Tomorrow, the next day. But these initial hours are so crucial. It's the end of the first day and I've learned so little about him. Maybe we could talk in the kitchen, the two of us, if you think you could leave her."

Gordon put an arm around his wife and spoke quietly near her ear. Julie Gordon nodded. "Go on," she said. "Go ahead. Anything we can do to help... I'll be okay." When he hesitated, she looked over at Burgess. "I'll be okay. Really. I'm much tougher than I seem right now. I'm sorry to be so much trouble. I never thought, when they called..." She massaged her chest with a shaky hand. "I never thought this would be so hard."

"There's nothing harder, Mrs. Gordon," he said.

She blinked at him, a little surprised, then nodded. "You do understand. I wish I could... if only I could talk without it hurting." Her brown eyes were moving, but she wasn't looking for anything in the room. She was looking for a reprieve, for mercy, for the magical stroke that would take back what had happened and make the world right again. When you're little, people tell you to find a cop when there's trouble, and the cop will fix it.

He'd seen that look many times, always wishing he could turn back time and give them what they wanted. Cops were realists. They had the seamiest side of life stuck in their faces daily. But that didn't mean they didn't feel. He wanted to hug her and tell her it would get better. Over time, it would. But it would never go away. He'd been mourning Kristin Marks for years. She still came to him in his sleep and stood watching with her sad, innocent eyes. When you worked a murder, the victim was yours for life.

"You never knew Timmy?" she asked. Burgess shook his head. "He was actually older than my younger son, Davey, but much smaller. Everyone called him Little Timmy. We've got the two boys, Sammy, who's nine, and Davey. He's seven. Timmy was right in the middle." She looked at her rough hands twisted up in the fabric of her skirt. She was that kind of proper woman who would wear a skirt for a visit from the police. "I wish I could talk about him, bring him to life for you... Oh, God! What am I saying?" Emotion choked her.

When she recovered, she said, "Alan, there's lemonade in the kitchen. Maybe the policeman would like that, or some coffee? Excuse me, I'm going upstairs to wash my face."

She was going upstairs to throw herself across her bed and release the choking sobs she'd been holding back. To wail and beat her fists and feel, in privacy, the overwhelming hurt. They all knew it. Burgess and Alan Gordon stood watching as she fumbled her way blindly across the room, hands over her face, then clung to the railing to haul herself up.

"This isn't like her, you know," Gordon said. "You're not seeing her as she is. Jules is a real brick. Solid as they come. She don't... doesn't give way to emotions like this. But Timmy... well, we can ill afford it, but she would have taken him in a minute. She did her best by the boy. There's no call for her to be accusing herself now because the social services wouldn't do their job..."

"She's the one who called?"

Gordon gave him a level look. "I'd think she was one of many, wouldn't you, not that it did any good. You've been in that house. Met those people. It's no fit place for a child."

"No," Burgess agreed. "It's not." In the sixteenth hour of this investigation, he was so tired his clothes felt heavy. "Do you mind if we sit?"

"There's a fan in the kitchen. I could make coffee..."

He hadn't even noticed the heat. He'd been focused on the emotion. "Coffee would be nice." He followed Gordon through a doorway. The contrast with the Watts's place couldn't have been greater. Even with two young boys around, everything was spotless and orderly and, as in his mother's house, you could have eaten off her floor. "You wife's a marvelous housekeeper," he said.

"She is that," Gordon agreed. "Best thing that ever happened to me."

Probably it was. Burgess liked to see relationships that worked. It gave him hope. He lowered himself carefully into a kitchen chair, favoring his knee. "Did you see Timmy yesterday?"

"Oh, sure," Gordon said, busying himself with the coffee. "We see him most days. Found him once sleeping on the step when I went out in the morning." His hands went still for a moment. "Can you imagine? That about broke my heart." He clutched the edge of the counter, knuckles white. In the living room, he'd had to be strong for his wife. Without her, he was stumbling. "Boy that young sleeping on a doorstep when he's got a home... uh... a house and a family almost next door. I brought him in and put him on the sofa. He didn't even wake up. I was awful glad Jules didn't see that."

Gordon went back to work, measuring, pouring. At least it wasn't going to be instant. Burgess drank it to be polite, but he hated instant. "Most times," Gordon said, "he shows up for breakfast or lunch, and then stays on. Showed, I mean. Stayed." He turned his face away, but Burgess could see him reflected in the glass, fist pressed against his mouth. "Officer? Uh... what am I supposed to call you, anyway? Sergeant? Detective?"

"Either one's fine." Better keep the man talking or he'd break down, too. "Can you tell me what time you last saw Timmy?"

"Yesterday afternoon. Sometime between three and four, I think, maybe a bit later. We had to go to a cook-out. People Julie works with. We don't really know them, and she wasn't comfortable taking an extra child along, so she sent him home. I mean, what else could she do, really? But now, with what's happened, she'll never forgive herself for leaving him behind." Gordon leaned on the counter, bracing himself with his arms. Burgess didn't need to see his face to know he was crying. It was there in the shaking back and shoulders. In Gordon's voice. "Jesus, Detective, Jesus, we should have just taken him. What difference would one child have made?"

A coffee mug shot across the counter and plummeted to the floor, exploding into shards. Gordon turned, slightly crouched, fists cocked like a boxer. "Goddammit!" he said. "Goddammit! Who did this to him? I need to know, Detective. I've got boys of my own."

"That's what I'm trying to find out," Burgess said quietly. "You got any ideas?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I do." Gordon got another mug from the cupboard, poured them each coffee, and set Burgess's down in front of him. "You take cream or sugar?"

"Both."

"Look, I don't know. I mean, me, I can't imagine how anyone could hurt a kid, let alone kill one. I heard..." His voice dropped as he leaned forward. "I heard it was really awful." When Burgess didn't respond, he said, "Oh, yeah. You can't talk about it, can you? Who I think might of done it? If it wasn't one of his own relatives? Which I wouldn't put it past them, you know what I mean? Kid was always black and blue. Mostly from Dwayne, but the parents weren't much better. Only time Timmy was treated half-decent was when Iris was home."

Gordon sat back in his chair, worry puckering his forehead like corrugated cardboard. "Has anyone told Iris yet? The deaf sister? She's not like the rest of them over there. She really loved him, Detective. When Iris was home, he was clean and fed and kept regular hours, like a normal kid. I hate to think of her all alone in her room, hearing it on the news. Except, she don't... doesn't hear. But she can read. They got newspapers. They get captions on their screens, don't they? My God! Bad as it is for us, think how it must be for her. She can't even run to a phone and call home and ask what's really happening."

He tugged at his mustache. "I dunno. Maybe she can use a phone." He shrugged. "But who would she call? Them? I don't guess any of that lot would think to call her."

Burgess hadn't contacted her and wasn't sure anyone else had. "I don't know if she's been told," he said. "I'll have to check with the Lieutenant in charge. So, you were going to tell me who you suspect?"

"Right. Well, like I said, there's Dwayne. He's a mean son-of-a-bitch and he didn't like Timmy. Lately it's been worse. Timmy's had more bruises, and Dwayne was even out in the street, screaming at him. Dwayne thought Timmy was stealing his stuff."

"What stuff?"

Gordon shrugged. "When I asked, Timmy just said he didn't fuckin' take nothin'. Those were his words. He didn't talk nice. Jules was always after him about it, like she'd be with Sammy or Davey. Once or twice, he got to swearing so bad she sent him home. But she's got a soft heart, and Timmy was real needy."

He lifted the cup to his lips, then set it down without drinking. "So, Dwayne. And there's that creep down by the park. We wouldn't let the boys go down there alone. Weekends, he'd sit there on a bench, letting his dog run loose, watching children. Once Sammy went into the bushes to pee... I know, we shouldn't of let him, it being a public park and all, but little kids, they gotta pee, you let 'em pee, right? Can't be worse than all those dogs running around, and we let them pee. Anyways, Sammy says that this guy, the creep, followed him and watched. That's not normal."

Gordon allowed himself a smile. "I'd watch their mothers."

"The creep down by the park, you know his name?" Gordon shook his head, then gave a description that was clearly Osborne. "Anybody else?"

"Yeah, I'm getting to that. But there's something you should know." Gordon folded his hands together and looked down at the table. For a second, Burgess wondered if he was confessing. "You bring up a list of sex offenders, you're going to find me." He watched Burgess's face. "See... when I was younger... before Jules, I spent a lotta time in bars. Used to get pretty drunk. One time, I'm taking a piss against a lamp post... cop comes along, tells me to knock it off. I give him some lip, get arrested for indecent exposure." Gordon shrugged. "So it looks bad. But all it was was pissing."

"Thanks for telling me," Burgess said. "Dwayne Martin. The guy down by the park. Anybody else?"

"Couple days ago," Gordon said, "Dwayne was having a screaming match out there in the street with some guy."

"You hear what they were fighting about?"

"The word they used was 'stuff' but you ask me, they were arguing about drugs."

"What makes you think so?"

"Because the other guy said... oh, yeah, he didn't say stuff. Guess Julie's been getting to me, too. He said 'shit.' He said if he didn't get his shit that he'd paid for before Friday, something real bad was going to happen." Gordon shrugged. "And something real bad happened."

"You know this guy?" Gordon shook his head. "Seen him around before?"

"Yeah."

"Can you describe him for me?"

"Sure. I got his license number, too. I'm pretty damned sick of that family and the way they're bringing down the neighborhood. Me and Jules, we're trying to raise kids here. You don't wanna raise kids next door to a bunch of drug dealers spouting filth day and night. And all that garbage gonna bring rats. Lemme find the number." He rummaged through a drawer, saying, apologetically, "Jules don't let me leave anything lying around."

God bless you, Alan Gordon, you'd better not be lying to me. And you'd better not be mixed up in this. He liked Gordon for a lot of reasons—for his caring, for his observations, for his decency. Even for his scrappy past. He'd committed a few acts of public indecency in his day. So had every man who'd ever drunk too much and relieved himself in a public place. He'd also had people lie to him well and convincingly. The cop who tells you he can always spot a liar is lying himself, whatever flavor-of-the-month detection method he says he's using. Good cops can do it most of the time. No one bats 1000.

Gordon came back with a scrap of paper. Burgess copied the number into his notebook. "Mind if I keep this?" Gordon shook his head. "What did this guy look like?"