The Boy Must Die (12 page)

“The sooner the better, Butch.”

“I’m running, buddy. As best as I can.”

“We can’t stop, not even for a breath. Killers who smash up houses, I figure, are on a roll. Darren’s hanging and this incident are making me feel uneasy. I want you to get a team of sergeants on call for twenty-four hours. We need backup for Royce and Dodd.”

Butch nodded and drove in silence up to Balham Street, where he parked the cruiser two hundred yards down from Dodd’s unmarked car. He phoned Dodd, car to car, and told him that he and Billy would take over. Dodd waved, and Billy looked carefully at the small bungalow rented by Sharon Riegert. It needed paint, the yard was full of shaggy crabgrass. A broken fence sagged against both sides of the house.

“You figure Woody will be here? Not at his own place?”

“It’s a hunch, Butch. I bet the two of them are lying low together, considering yesterday’s events.”

Butch called Dodd and handed the phone to Billy. “Dodd, go over to the Schow home now. Get the address from headquarters. Talk to Cody’s mother, if she’s sober. And to anyone around who might be nosy enough to keep tabs on the woman. Find out where she was last night. And push her, if you have to. Also call that junior high counsellor, Barnes, and see if he can locate a kid called Blayne Morton.”

Billy hung up. He got out and walked behind as Butch sauntered up to the Riegert bungalow’s front door. Chief Bochansky did not carry a weapon. But Billy insisted he phone the station to have a constable come by in case of trouble. Billy wasn’t so sure they’d need backup. Yet, with a man like Woody, a gun was not out of the question. Woody could be sitting waiting for them, a rifle loaded to blast through a front window.

Butch knocked.

“Ya? It’s open.”

Butch pushed the door slowly and stepped to the side. Billy stood opposite him.

“Come in, boys.” The voice was slurred. Butch peeked into a room darkened by a bedsheet pinned up over the front window. There was a smell of beer and fried food. Woody Keeler was standing in his shorts, holding a beer can, his shirt off, his feet bare. His hair was tied back. The doorway he stood in was lit from behind by a naked yellow bulb hanging from the ceiling of the kitchen. “Whad you after?”

Butch walked in, showed his badge, and told Woody why the two of them had driven over. Woody laughed. He turned and walked through the kitchen and went through a door leading to an open patch of unmowed lawn. He threw himself into a plastic lawn chair and raised his chin.

“You want to talk to me, Chief, you gotta come out here to do it.”

Butch sighed. “Wait here, Billy. I’ll handle this.”

Sharon Riegert came through the doorway dressed in a long pink bathrobe. Her hair was matted and her face puffy. “What is this?” she said, her voice gravelly.

“We came here to talk to your boyfriend, Mrs. Riegert.”

“About what?”

Sharon edged her way into the front room and lowered herself onto a couch covered with fake satin pillows and a giant pink dog. She grasped the dog to her chest, its plastic eyes the size of saucers. Billy thought the toy looked more frightening than cute.

“Where was Woody last night between ten and four in the morning?”

“How should I know?”

“Does he live here with you?”

“On and off. So what? What’d he do anyhow?”

“Were you here last night, Sharon?”

“Course. Where else would I be?”

She rubbed her hand across her nose.

“I wonder if you could help me, Sharon?”

“You sure are polite for a policeman. Whad you say your name was?”

“Yamamoto. Billy Yam. . . .”

“You a Chink or somethin’?”

“Japanese.”

Billy watched her. She was half asleep. Hungover. Her eyes were glazed. On her hands were scratches as if she’d been mauled by a cat. He looked up. Through the far doorway, Butch was leaning down to talk to Keeler. Butch’s face was contorted, his mouth moving fast. Woody was sitting stiff and still as if he’d been plastered to the chair.

“Woody went out,” Sharon said. “He went out, then he came back in. I was tired. I don’t know when. I don’t know when.”

“I am sorry about your son, Sharon. I want to find out who hurt him.”

“You do?” Sharon Riegert looked up.

Billy had seen faces ravaged by grief before. They took on a softer look somehow. The eyes were always narrow as if too much light, or too much terrible truth, might blind them.

“She did it. That witch. Bird. She hurt my boy. He shoulda never been there in that house.”

“Why would she hurt him, Sharon?”

“How do I know? She did, that’s all. How come he was there in that basement?” She looked as if she wanted to cry but was too exhausted.

“Did you know Cody Schow?”

“Stupid boy. I didn’t like him. Always sassing me. I told Darren, ‘Don’t ya go with him. He’s shit,’ I said. I told him not to go or he’d get a lickin’.”

“What were your son’s other friends like, Sharon?”

“What friends? I don’t know. Just that fat kid with the camera.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Ya. You think I’m stupid? Blayne. He was hanging around here a lot. Always outside waitin’ for Darren. I didn’t know if he was pickin’ on him or what. Darren sometimes went out with him somewhere.”

“What kind of camera was it?”

“Black. Kinda old-fashioned. The front popped out. I think it was one of them where you get the picture quick, you know. . . .”

“Polaroid.”

“I don’t know, maybe. I didn’t like him.”

“Did he ever give any pictures to Darren? Did you ever see any?”

“Course.”

Sharon struggled up from the satin pillows. “Come ’ere,” she said. Billy followed her into a closet-like space off the living room. Dark cloth hung over the single window. A narrow bed had rumpled blue sheets. Posters of Marilyn Manson and Metallica were attached to the walls with staples. Sharon lifted a red notebook from a table beside the bed. She slapped it open, her hand smacking the paper. Two Polaroids were stuck in the back of the notebook. “I found these in the garbage a few days ago. Maybe a week or so. I thought Darren lost them, so I put ’em back in his schoolbook. You can have ’em. He don’t need them.” She dropped the notebook, covered her face with her left hand, and with the right thrust the two pictures at Billy.

“Can you remember what Darren was wearing on Friday?”

“No. Just his normal clothes.”

“Did he wear jeans, a jacket, boots?”

“Sort of. I mean, he liked black. I guess it was a black shirt and jeans. Why?”

“We’re still looking for his clothes, Mrs. Riegert. They may help us find the person who hurt Darren.”

Sharon Riegert raised her hands. “I don’t wanta hear.” Quickly, she left the room.

Billy examined the photos; one showed a large red Valentine box of chocolates; the other was a picture of Darren, his eyes half closed, wearing a leather jacket. Billy looked in the closet and found only rumpled shirts and underwear. He bent down and scanned the floor under the bed, finding nothing. Where was the leather jacket? Billy returned to the living room. Sharon was wiping her eyes and holding the stuffed dog to her chest.

“May I keep these for a while, Sharon?”

“You can have them all you want.”

“Do you know where Darren’s jacket is?”

Sharon looked at the Polaroid and shrugged. Billy glanced towards the front door. A row of coat hooks held cloth jackets and a raincoat.

“Did Woody ever hurt Darren?”

“No. Okay, maybe he hit him once. I don’t remember. It didn’t mean nothing.”

“Did Darren ever say Blayne hurt him? Or wanted to hurt him?”

“He never talked to me about the fat kid. I just saw them once in a while, that’s all.”

Butch came into the room. Woody was right behind him, wearing a drunken grin.

“You got nothing on me, Chief. Ask her. Ask her where I was!”

Sharon stood up. She began to shake.

“I didn’t tell him nothin’, Woody! I said ya went out for a little while. That’s all. I was in bed. I was tired, I didn’t. . . .”

“It’s all right, Sharon,” said Butch, toning his voice to sound calm.

“You men want a beer or somethin’?” Woody laughed.

“Come on, Billy. Good day, folks,” said Butch.

“Mind you shut the door nice, now,” cried Woody.

Back in the cruiser, Butch lit up.

“Nothing,” said Butch. “Of course. We’d need a warrant to search the place. But who knows? He may have dumped anything he had, if he was there. But I got a bad itch in my armpit, and when I itch about someone I’m usually right.”

“Was he wearing an elastic band in his hair?”

“Yeah. Bright red.”

“She told me a little herself. Calls Sheree Lynn Bird a witch. But better, she said Blayne Morton had been around the house. That he had a camera. She gave me these.”

Billy showed Butch the photos. “Look at the back of the one with the Valentine.”

Butch read out loud: “‘Meet Me at Gym Later, or Else.’“

“Sound like a threat to you?”

“We got us a sweetheart. Can’t wait to meet him.”

“Sharon didn’t know what went on between the two boys. She kept lashing out at Sheree Lynn Bird.”

“That’s guilt talking, buddy. She’s a beater. Sheree was the only loving mother type the kid probably had.”

“Perhaps,” said Billy. Sheree Lynn Bird brought out a fear, an anger, in these people. Billy wasn’t so sure the reactions of these parents could be so easily dismissed.

“Speaking of elastics,” he then said, filling up the sudden silence between them. “Let’s get the one we found today over to the lab. We might get lucky and find one of Woody’s hairs.”

Butch stubbed out his cigarette. “I’m pissed off about that bastard.”

“Blayne Morton may prove to be a better lead,” Billy said. “Two people have given me the impression he was a bully and possessive. And going after Darren.”

Butch grinned. “How ’bout on our way to old Hawkes we get a Colombian to go?”

“Mac’s is open on Sundays?”

“Buddy, Mac’s is always open.”

“Hawkes. Reggie Hawkes.”

“Billy Yamamoto.”

The medical examiner lifted the plastic sheet lying over Darren Riegert’s body. The morgue was the same as when Billy had first seen it,
but with Hawkes working this Sunday morning, the place took on a more portentous atmosphere. The institutional green of the walls seemed gloomier; the flickering fluorescents lit up surfaces with a harder shine. Even the sickly punch of fresh ammonia was more acrid.

Hawkes pointed to Darren’s neck, the skin and part of the muscle layer pulled back like the rind of a peeled orange. He flipped open his forensic report chart. Stapled to the top sheet was an eight-by-ten black-and-white photo of Darren’s body hanging by a rope from the conduit pipe in the Satan House basement. In the upper corner of the sheet, Hawkes had circled the lab report number in red ink. He’d also underlined his full title: Dr. Reginald D. Hawkes, M.D. Ph.D.

“As you can see, gentlemen, comparing the photo taken by the capable Miss Johnson, the ligature bruise on the neck — here and here — is consistent with the angle at which the body was found hanged. See here, as well, the suppressed and crushed bone of what is commonly called the Adam’s apple. No finger marks. No concussion, no contusion on the skull. We found a little treasure in the mouth cavity. Lying on the tongue with the boy’s blood smeared on one side.”

Hawkes picked up a Ziploc. Inside was a stained piece of paper with writing on one side.

“A quote from the book of Daniel:
‘Mene Mene Tekel’
meaning ‘God hath finished it. Thou art found wanting.’ A gruesome thought, I’d say.” Hawkes sniffed. He spoke with a clipped, high-pitched British accent. Above his thin-lipped mouth he wore an elaborate moustache, waxed and combed, the ends trimmed to two twisted points that curled inward towards his nose. Dapper was the word that leapt into Billy’s mind. Hawkes wore a bow tie and a small microphone clipped in a circle around his neck, its grey cord trailing out from under his white lab coat. The mike cord was attached to a long extension, which led to an older-model Sony two-reeler. “Careful,” he said to Billy as he started to move around the top end of the gurney. “Don’t disturb that cord. If you disconnect me, I’ll have to repeat myself!” He flashed a thin sharp smile.

“First off, now that you’ve seen the neck, there is not much else I can
point out. Time of death was between midnight and 12:20 a.m. The penis, anus, and rectum have not been molested, nor are there signs of other bodily fluids. I can see no evidence of sexual shenanigans with this chap. I had the medic do a quick lab run on the blood sample he’d taken at the site yesterday morning. No drugs of any kind in the bloodstream. The rest of the hospital’s toxicology report also confirms no food in the stomach — except a trace of chocolate. Not real chocolate, mind, but the edible oil stuff dressed up to look like the real Swiss. No poison. The back and chest show no marks of beating. The knife cuts were shallow, inflicted with a serrated edge. That knife you dug up in the garden would’ve done quite nicely. The cuts were made before the body was hanged. The blood spill and flow on the skin tells us that. The streakings here and here and in the palm match the blood sample from the lab. So we can assume the blood on this corpse came from this body.”

“Could this be a case of torture?”

“Certainly. Though the cuts were so slight, and the way they were indented here on the chest area, then drawn towards the heart, might imply self-mutilation. Any cut would hurt, though, wouldn’t it? I must admit, I am stumped about the twine. It seems somebody tied the boy up after he was cut. After he was dead.”

Billy gazed at young Darren’s body. “With rigor setting in three to four hours after death, Dr. Hawkes, would it be difficult to tie up a pair of hands in this fashion? From the photo you have there on your lab report, the arms are protruding and the hands oddly stiff. If Darren was tied before he lost consciousness, the hands would look more relaxed; they would hang down, not sit out as they do in the photo.”

“And indeed as they do on this gurney, Inspector,” answered Hawkes. “This is an odd situation. The tied hands vexed me as well. Which is why I think it occurred post-mortem. Also, I’ve seen hangings in which a body was hauled up by a rope. A lynching, actually. Many years ago. If this child was lynched, the bruises would’ve been much broader, the damage to the throat much more severe. The way the rope markings occurred on this cadaver, I’d say the hanging was gentle. The
bruise is slighter than I expected when I first saw Johnson’s photos. This music player — the boom box — was used as a platform for the hanging, was it?”