A Child Shall Lead Them (A Joe Burgess Mystery, Book 6)

by Flora, Kate;

  “I’ll grab Sage Prentiss. I need you two working on things here. Terry, follow up with Remy, get background on McCann, then call the middle and high schools and see if they’re missing a student who fits our girl’s description.”

  Kyle shot him a look.

  “The sleeve, Terry,” Burgess said. “I don’t imagine they know of any students who are normally missing their heads. Actually missing their heads.”

  One of Kyle’s rare smiles came and went. If you didn’t know the man, you’d never see those, Burgess thought. Kyle wasn’t humorless, just very contained.

  “Stan, you see if any tattoo artists in the city recognize that sleeve. We’ve got to ID this girl. Then get on to Vice, see if they have anything.”

  Perry focused on a blow-up of the girl’s tattoo sleeve. “Can I take this?”

  Burgess nodded, and Perry unpinned the picture and put it in a folder.

  The unfinished tat reminded Burgess of his crime scene photos—that blank space waiting to be filled in. He hoped he’d be luckier than this girl. She’d died before she had a chance to finish.

  “We need to give her a working name until we find out who she is,” Burgess said, peering at the tattoos in another photo. “I hate to keep calling her ‘the girl.’ Got any ideas?”

  He could tell Perry was suppressing a smartass remark. Maybe the kid was finally learning some self-control.

  Kyle was looking at the pictures, too, muttering, “Headless, vacant, missing.” He leaned in closer to the photo and pointed to the central figure in the sleeve. “Mermaid,” he said. “She’s our mermaid.”

  They headed home to grab a little sleep. Tomorrow would be here soon enough, and it would be all about a mermaid.

  Burgess, unable to help himself, took a detour.

  Eight

  It was just after midnight as Burgess drove out Congress Street, heading for Stroudwater Park. With the clouds gone, and only a sliver of moon overhead, the sky was a deep blue-black and the stars were brilliant. Burgess liked the night. Lots of people were scared of it. Lots of cops, even. It brought back memories of monsters hiding in the closet and under the bed. Scary stories by the campfire. And for cops, bad guys suddenly popping out of the darkness, with fists or knives or guns. Bad things happened at night.

  But for Burgess, it also meant peace and quiet. He liked to drive past houses where people were sleeping and recall nights on patrol, eager and vigilant, knowing it was his job to keep them safe, to let them sleep undisturbed by the dangerous things that happened in the dark. These days, with his small house full of noisy kids, often kids fighting over a computer, or TV, or who got to eat the last cookie, night was a refuge. It was the place where he could be alone with his thoughts.

  He was driving on autopilot, radio chatter turned down low, running those endless lists of questions to be answered that were the beginning of any investigation, when there was a blur of motion and a deer leapt into the road. He jammed on the brakes, the Explorer bucking and sliding as he brought it to a stop just inches from the animal. With a bound, the creature leapt into the bushes and was gone.

  Clutching the wheel, bathed in the intense adrenaline of a close encounter, he waited for his breathing to settle. Experience said wait for something else, and he sat patiently while two small spotted fawns emerged from the shrubbery and followed their mother across the road. Raising children was so fraught with danger.

  He wanted to think somewhere in this city, or elsewhere, someone was missing a child and worrying about her. So many years dealing with bad stuff—coupled with what he’d seen today—told him that was likely wishful thinking. Sometimes, sad as it was, cops were often the only mourners.

  He waited until the little white flags of their tails had disappeared, then drove on. Wildlife sightings were also part of nights in his city. The more common raccoons, bunnies, owls, possums, skunks, and rats—the good citizens of his city would be shocked at how often he saw rats—but also deer, foxes, coyotes, once or twice a fierce and terrible fisher, and, more rarely, a moose or a bear. His mother had been a keen-eyed observer, and she had taught him to be one as well. Things other people never saw, Burgess did. That childhood training in being observant had been useful in his chosen profession.

  There were two Portland police cars in the lot. Otherwise, it was deserted. He didn’t immediately get out. Instead, he sat and took in the environment, just as he’d observed the streets driving in.

  One of the patrol officers strolled over and knocked on his window. “Anything we can do for you, Sarge?”

  “Just getting a feel for things without the Lookie Loos and the press,” he said. “Things been quiet?”

  The officer shrugged. “Mostly. There was one odd thing,” he said. “Guy who found the body? McCann? He was out here about an hour ago. Said he’d dropped something. Wanted us to let him go back out there and look for it.”

  The officer snorted. “No way that was happening.”

  “He give you any trouble?”

  “Got kinda mouthy, said he’d had enough of cops today, he just wanted to get his stuff, what the hell was the problem.”

  The officer leaned away from the car and adjusted his duty belt, just like Burgess figured he’d done for McCann. “I said it was a crime scene was the problem. Investigators would likely be out to search again in the morning. If he wanted to tell me what it was, I could pass it on, maybe the investigators would find it for him.” The officer grinned. “He didn’t seem to like that much. Man said a few bad words and then he drove away.”

  “This was about an hour ago?”

  “Right around eleven, Sarge.”

  So not when they’d dropped McCann off to pick up his car. Burgess wondered whether McCann really was looking for something, or just setting up an explanation in case the cops had found, or would find, something connecting him to the crime? One more reason to come back in daylight and have another look around. Early daylight, since he was due in Augusta at ten.

  Now that they’d made a concrete plan for the morning, and he’d gotten a feel for this place, he was ready for bed. He’d already put the truck in gear when he thought of something else. Trash cans. He could do them in the morning, but what if trash pickup was early? What if some of those nocturnal animals he’d been reminiscing about came looking for goodies and dragged something important away?

  Was it only a few hours ago that he’d decided his dumpster diving days were over? Probably. But he wasn’t about to call some poor guy or gal from patrol out here at this hour so they could check the trash. He sighed, shut off his engine, and walked around to the back. He grabbed a flashlight, a tarp, and his search gloves. Then he headed for the can nearest to where McCann’s car had been parked. He carried the contents over to the base of a light illuminating the parking lot, spread out his tarp, pulled on his gloves, and poured out the whole disgusting contents.

  His periodic forays into people’s trash convinced him of several things. First, that he’d never make it as a garbage man. Second, that people discarded an astounding amount of uneaten food. Third, that there is little in the world more repulsive than a dirty diaper. Except, possibly, old, half-eaten steak.

  Luckily, this mess had no steak or diapers. He had learned to be grateful for small things.

  He found a sturdy stick, which he used to distribute the contents, studying them each time he shifted them around. He was about to pack it all up when he found a glittery pink barrette. He could be wrong. It could be just coincidence, but it looked like the mate to the one Perry had found in the woods. If it was evidence, it was weird evidence, since the victim had no head, and therefore no hair. But if she’d been in the killer’s car before the mutilations, she might have had barrettes, and might have lost them there. One of them might have hitched a ride on whatever the body was wrapped in, and dropped off as she was carried through the brush.

  He carefully collected and bagged it, then returned the rest of the stuff to the bin. There was another trash c
ontainer at the other end of the lot, so he checked that one, too. He wasn’t expecting anything, and got no further reward for his troubles, but it was always better to be thorough.

  Then, with something to show for his efforts, and a long day ahead of him tomorrow, he drove home, showered the garbage smell off, and climbed into bed.

  Someone in the bed was wearing that silky blue thing he liked so much, the item of clothing that more enticed than covered, and as was often the case when the blue thing appeared, his day ended on a very fine note.

  Nine

  Morning, as was its wont, came too early, bringing with it familial commotion. Today’s commotion was Dylan getting ready to go to his job as a life guard, Nina heading out to be mother’s helper to a mom overwhelmed by the arrival of twins, and Neddy getting ready for day camp and unable to find his bathing suit. Through it all, Chris was calm and cheerful. Sometimes, he wondered how he got so lucky.

  His feeling of being lucky lasted less than five minutes. That’s when the phone rang and Captain Cote, his nemesis, called with his predictable complaint about not having their reports. To his credit, after making Burgess’s life hell for years, Cote had mellowed since Burgess saved his life. But it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and without frequent reminders, Cote reverted to his numbskull and abusive ways. One of those was to call up his exhausted detectives after a day, or often a day and a night, of working a crime scene, disturbing their sleep to demand reports about the details. Reports his detective hadn’t yet had time to write. Details they liked to bury, given his predilection for carelessly disclosing important details to the press.

  But Cote was not calling a solitary Burgess desperately trying to get some sleep anymore. He was calling the Burgess household, where the Burgess kids actually vied for the chance to speak with Cote and keep him from reaching their dad. Today it was Neddy’s turn. Burgess heard him take the phone, say very politely, “I’m sorry sir, but my dad’s still asleep.” Then say, “Sorry, I gotta go. I’m late for camp. Call back later.” And that was that.

  Burgess had learned to find joy in small things. He rolled over and was about to snatch a few more minutes of sleep when the words “crime scene” flew into his mind, and he flew out of bed.

  He needed to go back out there, take a close look at the scene and its surroundings, and make the call whether they should get a group of officers out there to do a more detailed grid search. Allowing himself a moment of regret for his lost sleep, he got up.

  “Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?” Chris asked as he came into the kitchen.

  “Not very.”

  She leaned against the counter, an impish smile on her face. “Think how much more sleep you’d get if you gave up sex.”

  “Give it up? Ma’am, I am just getting started.”

  She laughed and went to dress for work.

  “Hey,” he called after her. “Guess what? Stan and Lily are getting married a week from Saturday, and I’m going to be best man.”

  “So you can keep him from running away?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Just a good guess. You’d better take your suit to the cleaners. Or are you supposed to wear your dress uniform?”

  “Guess I’ll have to check.”

  “Where are you off to today?”

  “Back to Stroudwater Park, then on to Augusta for the autopsy.”

  “I guess I won’t say ‘have fun’ will I?”

  Burgess had been a slave to his work for so long he should have been heading out the door. Instead, he went to the bedroom and watched Chris dress.

  “Mister,” she said, “there is nothing sexy about scrubs.”

  “I think sexy is in the eye of the beholder,” he said. “And I am beholding you. Speaking of sexy, do some people find tattoos sexy?”

  “Maybe. But if you’re thinking of getting one, be warned that I am not one of those people. Young people don’t think about this, but as we age, the skin stretches. Never mind what happens when people put on weight. There’s not much sexy about a stretched out dragonfly being swallowed up in rolls of fat.”

  She wiggled her feet into her clogs. “What makes you think about tattoos?”

  “My victim,” he said. “Kyle’s calling her The Mermaid, because of her tattoos.”

  “Body art,” she said.

  “That’s what it’s called now?”

  “Called lots of things, but that’s what I recently heard. It beats tramp stamp.” She checked herself in the mirror and picked up her purse. “Call me if you won’t be home for dinner.”

  “Will do. But you know…”

  “How you get? I sure do. And speaking of how you get, did you remember your knee brace?”

  She was only nagging him for his own good, as she often reminded him, so even though he hated how it reminded him that he was a creaky old gimp, he put it on.

  He walked down to the cars with her, watched her drive away, then climbed into the Explorer and headed out. Between getting extra sleep and then taking those moments with Chris, he really hadn’t given himself enough time to get out to Stroudwater before the autopsy. Now the roads were filling up with people on their way to work. People who seemed not yet fully awake. People who were giving more attention to their phones than their driving. People who were finishing their personal grooming in their cars. His mother would have been scandalized, and frankly, he wasn’t far behind.

  If he weren’t in a hurry, he would have pulled a few of them over and delivered a lecture on inattentive driving. Until, Holy Fuck! The woman who was eating cereal—spoon in one hand, bowl in the other, veered into his lane and missed him by a whisker, then overcorrected and rolled up onto the sidewalk, heading right at a woman with a stroller. The woman screamed and jerked the stroller aside.

  He couldn’t let it go. He pulled a U-turn, flipped on his siren and his blues, and pulled her over.

  He wasn’t sure how she managed to pull over, because when he walked up to her window, she was still eating. He had to bang on it before she rolled it down.

  “License and registration, please, ma’am.”

  She tossed her hair, shook her head, and went on eating.

  He reached in, took the bowl and spoon, and set them on the ground. “License and registration, ma’am.”

  “That was my breakfast,” she whined. She was a cute girl, with fluffy blonde hair and wide brown eyes, her lashes stiff with mascara. She wore a flowered minidress—he could tell it was mini because it barely covered her crotch—and had a daisy inked on one arm. Nothing else resembled his dead girl, though. This one was driving a blue BMW and reeked of privilege. She still had a head, though she wasn’t using it.

  “License and registration,” he said. Maybe he roared. He wasn’t sure. The clock was running and she was being an idiot. He didn’t have time for this.

  “I’m in a hurry,” she said. “I’m late for work.”

  “That makes two of us,” Burgess said, “and if I don’t see your license and registration right now, you are going to be later for work because you are going to be in jail.”

  She batted the big brown eyes. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Ma’am, will you step out of the car, please?”

  “Can’t,” she said brightly. “I’m not wearing shoes.”

  He couldn’t help himself. “You’re going to work barefoot?”

  Another bat of her eyes. “I think I’ve got some shoes in the trunk.”

  He made one more request for her license and registration, then got his phone out and called Dispatch, asked them to have patrol come and pick up a driver who refused to produce her license and registration and who had been stopped for inattentive driving and a marked lane violation. He gave the make of her car and her plate number and described what she’d been doing. Before he went back to his car, he reached in and snagged her keys. She was exactly the type to drive away.

  Back in his car, he asked Dispatch for a check on the plate and got back a Thomas
Bailey, who was clearly not her. He was in the middle of that when there was a tap on his passenger window. He was expecting the girl from the car, but it was the woman with the stroller.

  He rolled down the window. “Ma’am,” he said, “are you and your child all right.”

  The woman had been crying, and she was clutching a small baby protectively in her arms. “Not really,” she said. “She came so close. Actually, she brushed the stroller. Thank goodness I had Emilie in her baby carrier. She was fussy, so I picked her up, and then that woman. That girl. She…”

  “It must have been very frightening,” he said, which was an understatement. The baby could have been killed.

  “You are arresting her, right? Promise me that you’re arresting her!”

  “Yes, ma’am. I am. But it would help to keep her from doing something like that again if I could get a statement from you. It doesn’t have to be right now. Just give me your contact information, and I’ll check in with you later.”

  “Gladly,” she said. “Gladly. That little bitch skates on everything. It’s about time something sticks.”

  Obviously, this wasn’t the first time the girl’s driving had caught this woman’s attention. Probably not the first time the girl had been stopped. He was intrigued, but he didn’t have time to follow up. He needed to hand this off to patrol and head up to Augusta. He got her information and would have asked a few more questions about her previous experience with the subject, but the baby was wailing.

  “I’ve got to get her home,” the woman said, and hurried away.

  He’d asked for patrol, got Remy Aucoin, and that gave him an idea.

  First, though, he had to hand off this dangerous woman. In his mind, he said, “Dangerous dame.” He liked the alliteration, but that wouldn’t play in the 21st century. Neither would airhead, bimbo, or twit, however apt they were.

  “I need you on my homicide, Remy,” he said, “Can you get someone else to take this woman back and book her?”

  Remy didn’t quite suppress an exuberant grin as he slipped back in his cruiser and got on the radio.