The Angel of Knowlton Park (20 page)

Timmy Watts had been stabbed eleven times with a smooth, doubled-edged blade, approximately three to four inches long. "How wide?" Burgess asked.

"Inch at the hilt, maybe," Lee said.

"Standing or lying?"

"Lying down." Lee's hands described the angle of the knife. Then he pointed to one of the wounds. "Looks like he tried to roll away from the knife, curl up to protect himself. That's why this one's way over here to the side. Probably a right-handed assailant." He didn't miss Burgess's grimace. "You're not letting this one get to you, are you, detective?"

"What killed him?"

Lee pointed to a wound higher up the chest and toward the side. "This one. But the others did enough damage that together, they would have."

"The head wound?"

"Single blow with a blunt object. You've got some nice impressions here if you knew what to match them to. Coke bottle would be my guess. One of those small ones. But that only stunned him. It wouldn't have killed him."

"I've got a Coke bottle in the car," Wink said.

Lee glanced impatiently at his watch. "Small one?" Devlin nodded. "Go get it." Lee paced impatiently while they waited, eager to get on with it and get to his golf.

"Golf means that much to you?" Burgess said.

"You think I'm moving too fast?" Lee said. "You think maybe I'll get careless and miss something?"

Burgess had never seen Lee anything but cool and detached. Entertaining, at times, but always distant. Today he seemed angry. "I'd hate to see another child-killer walk, that's all," Burgess said.

"No one's ever walked because of my mistake."

Devlin returned with the bottle and gave it to Lee. Sensing something in the air, he looked curiously at Burgess and the assistant ME. When no one said anything, he picked up his camera and filmed Dr. Lee comparing the bottom of the bottle with the marks on Timmy Watts's skull. Filmed Lee's triumphant smile, decisive nod, then changed cameras and did a series of still shots.

"Here's one of your weapons," Lee said, shooting a challenging look at Burgess.

Burgess wasn't playing the game, wasn't sure Lee wanted to play it either. He was too old for verbal versions of my dick's bigger than your dick. "The sexual assault?"

"Don't let the KY fool you," Lee said. "Perp did that for himself, not for the kid. It was violent. Brutal. There are tears and bruising. The boy would have been in pain. And I'll be surprised if you find sperm." Lee went on with the autopsy but now, clearly in response to Burgess's implied criticism, he did it at half speed—half-speed for a normal person. He did everything slowly and carefully, dictating lengthy, detailed and precise descriptions of every step, shooting Burgess the occasional look to be sure he understood what was going on.

Burgess knew all about malicious obedience. He practiced it himself occasionally, especially with Cote. Didn't much like finding himself in the same class as that asshole. He didn't think there was any more care or reverence in this slow technique than there had been in Lee's Vegematic style. What was missing from the room was a sense of shared purpose, of mission, something he thought had been there earlier. But maybe Dr. Lee's only mission was reading the entrails, getting the slice and dice right; his only goal that his ego be satisfied, that if the case came to court, he wouldn't be found lacking. Maybe what had brought them all here—a child's death—didn't matter so long as the essential information was obtained. He thought of Kristin Mark's autopsy, with a different ME, of the profound sadness in the room.

His neck and shoulders were stiff. Stools weren't much good for sitting after the first twenty minutes or so. He stood, shifting his shoulders, trying to work the kinks out. Standing wasn't better, only different. The pain shifted to his leg. Devlin was tired, too. The camera wasn't light and they'd been at this a long time. He was sure Wink had put in a day as long as his yesterday. Wink didn't like to go to bed until all his toys were put away.

His mind drifted to Iris Martin and the news he was bringing; the questions he'd have to ask. It seemed a cruel thing to do to a sheltered young girl, but it was a necessary cruelty, just as this was. It had been a while since he'd done an interview with a deaf witness and never with one so young. He couldn't imagine how the interpreter would handle the information he was bringing, or elicit the information he was seeking. He wondered whether Iris Martin was profoundly deaf or only partially. How she'd communicated with Timmy.

He yawned. Dr. Lee smiled sardonically. "We keeping you up, detective?" Lee had never been like this before. Usually, the doc called him Joe. Maybe this wasn't personal. Maybe someone was chewing on Lee's ass and he just needed an ass of his own to chew.

Maybe they could call a truce. "Four hours sleep," he said apologetically. "I'm getting too old for this."

"Almost done." Lee took the blood and urine samples he needed and turned to the stomach, which he'd set aside in a pan. "Let's have a look at his last meal, shall we?" He sliced and a sour smell filled the air. After all these years, Burgess thought he could probably track the course of an autopsy with a blindfold on, purely by the smells and sounds. Lee peered in. "This isn't a clinical opinion, detectives," he said, "but it looks a lot like a couple of hot dogs to me."

Burgess crossed the room, looked, and added another item to the list of things he'd never eat again. "Care to comment on the interval between last meal and death?"

"An hour, maybe?"

"And the time of death?" Lee hesitated. "If you can," Burgess urged. "Anything to narrow the time."

"Between 10:00 p.m. and midnight. That's very rough. I wouldn't take that one to the bank, Detective. Too many variables."

Burgess understood that. He was still hoping for witnesses. Real live humans who'd seen Timmy Watts on the night he died after he left Mrs. Johnston's house and headed toward that blue car. For now, he'd take anything he could get, even a reluctant guess from a cranky medical examiner.

"That's all, folks," Lee announced, deftly putting the sampled organs back in the body. "We'll get you toxicology as soon as we can." He stepped back from the table and nodded at Al. "You can finish up." Al hung back, waiting for Lee to leave.

"Wink, you need any help?" Burgess asked.

Devlin nodded. "Can you bring the blankets and the sheets?"

As Burgess bent to pick them up, he spotted something on the floor by the wall and knelt down cautiously to examine it. "Wink, you got some tweezers and a plastic bag?"

Devlin handed them down. "Whatcha got?"

"I don't know." He captured it, bagged it, and handed it over. "Do you?"

"Looks like something mechanical, maybe?" Wink lowered the bag. "Goddamn! Found on the floor of the autopsy room. We don't even know if it came from the boy. Could have come in on a shoe."

"Then let's hope it's not the crucial link." He'd be nearly an hour late for his appointment with Iris Martin and Cote would be pitching fits. He'd better do a preliminary report by phone. Better than looking at that revolting face anyway. He picked up the bags holding the blue blanket and the sheets, and walked slowly out of the room, pausing at the door for one last look at the remains of Timmy Watts.

He put the bags in Wink's car, then headed toward his own, swimming through the turgid air like a shipwrecked sailor still a long way from shore. He felt as drained and hollowed out as that child on the table, his mood dense and ugly. He closed his eyes and reached inside himself for something that would carry him through the next few hours—compassion and patience for Iris Martin, clarity and resistance for Cote. Heard the jingle of keys and looked up.

Dr. Lee was standing a few feet away, watching him. They stood in a moment of silent appraisal. "I hate doing kids," Lee said. He got in his car and drove away.

Chapter 15

Until that moment, watching her expressive hands swooping with grace and punching emphatically, and the elaborate facial expressions accompanying them, Burgess had had no conception of signing as something beautiful and unique. He hadn't understood it as a language, only as a tool. Iris Martin sat in an ugly orange institutional chair, tears running down her face, and the movements were so eloquent he hardly needed the interpreter to know what she was saying. How much she had loved her brother, how concerned she'd been that he was allowed to run wild, her fears that something like this might happen, how helpless she'd been to prevent it. And then, in contrast to that last, that it had all been her fault.

Something he hadn't seen from the photograph was her resemblance to her brother. She had the same slight build, the same fine-boned face. In her face, he saw what Timmy Watts's blue eyes would have looked like with life in them instead of staring empty at a hot summer sky. Her last name might be Martin, but she was clearly a full sister. The picture in Timmy's room had been unflattering. In person, Iris Martin had a fragile loveliness, with a grace and dignity far beyond her seventeen years. Even as her hands and face moved and her tears flowed, he got a sense of steadiness and calm. He felt that Iris, who had already survived much, would weather this as well. Growing up in the Watts household had made her a survivor. He also felt the incredible depth of her sorrow. Here, as at the Gordons', was a proper place for his expression of regret.

Before the interview began, he'd met with the interpreter, Missy Steinberg, a warm middle-aged woman with an explosive mop of curly gray hair, and she'd explained the protocol. "I'll be interpreting," she said, "but although it is my voice, it is Iris who is speaking, and you should be looking at her, not me, when you ask your questions and when you hear her answers. My job is to ask your questions exactly as you put them, not interpreting them or editing them, and to do the same with her answers. I will not try to explain you to her, nor her to you. I won't answer questions about her for you, nor about you for her."

She considered. "The timing may seem strange. Between when she answers, and when I tell you her answer, I may have to ask some questions, to be sure I've got it right. Speak slowly and be sure she can see your face. In her presence, I'm only an interpreter." She'd paused, slightly uncomfortable, as people often were in the presence of the police. "Iris is not profoundly deaf. She has some hearing, and her oral skills are quite good. She's more comfortable with signing, more fluent, and given the stressful nature of the interview, we felt it would be easiest for her."

Her hands flew out in a self-deprecating gesture. "What am I saying? How could this possibly be easy for her, no matter what we do? She loved her brother so much, tried so hard to care for him. She blames herself for what happened. She wanted to live at home this summer so she could take care of Timmy. You've seen that place?" Burgess nodded.

Missy Steinberg touched his arm. If touches had voices, this one would have been insistent, loud. "If anyone's at fault, I am. I persuaded her to stay for the summer, for another year. I convinced her she could take better care of Timmy if she finished high school and got the skills to get a job." She pulled her hand back into her lap and knotted her hands together. "If she'd gone home, this might not have happened, but her life might have been ruined. Abandoning her education? Living with those people in that hell hole?" Her shoulders rose and fell. "Hindsight is always 20-20, isn't it? If I'd known it would save a life..."

"Ms. Steinberg, few of us make our daily choices assuming we, or someone we know, might be killed tomorrow."

"I know," she said, "but still."

"Something like this happens, we all wonder what we might have done to prevent it. Tell me about Iris Martin. What's she like?"

"There's something ethereal, other worldly, about her." She caught his look. "Oh, I know that sounds odd, but you'll see what I mean when you meet her." She sighed. "Oh. All right. Like Audrey Hepburn, then. That slight, light quickness. The delicacy... and she's very artistic." She stopped. "Am I being a complete ass?"

"I've met a fair number of people who are complete asses. You're not even in the running." He changed the subject. "Does she know why I'm here?"

Missy Steinberg nodded. "I'm afraid so. She has a lot of questions she wants to ask you. No one from the family has been in touch. I'm afraid she learned it from the papers... that horrible picture."