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

by Flora, Kate;

  “You did great, Stan,” Burgess said. “It’s going to be hard to bury the missing head and hands, but we want to keep the tattoos out of the press as long as possible. True, they may be how we have to identify her in the end, but I’d like to exhaust other avenues first.”

  He sipped his drink. An old fashioned. The bartender here was topnotch. He could almost feel the bourbon’s heat rolling through him. “I got tied up today with a traffic stop,” he said, “so I sent Remy out to do some more searching. The kid crawled around on his hands and knees and found something.”

  He filled them in on the piece of metal with teeth that Dr. Lee had found in the wound, and how it looked like it matched up with the saw Remy found. Then he told them about Charlie Hooper, and the faked driver’s license number belonging to Ida Mae Wilson. “Maybe when we’re done here, we can take a ride out and see if the Hoopers are home.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Perry said, and filled Kyle in on the info he’d gotten from DeSpain at Sweety’s Tattoos.

  Kyle looked unhappy. They tried not to be competitive, but when the prize was solving a young girl’s murder, it was hard not to be, and he hadn’t had a productive day.

  “The description of the man who was with her the first two times sounds an awful lot like the man calling himself Charles Hooper who paid me a visit today,” Burgess said. “Allegedly looking for his missing daughter. The one who gave me his license, the number of which turned out to belong to Ida Mae Wilson. Wilson’s address is the same one Hooper gave, and he’s driving a car registered to Wilson.”

  “Stranger and stranger,” Kyle said. “I wonder if Wilson is his mom or his granny. If she’s buried in the back yard or the cellar?”

  “Perhaps we’ll learn more if we pay them a visit.”

  “Hey,” Perry said. “Maybe those missing body parts are buried in the yard.”

  He said it just as their waitress delivered their dinners, and she gave him a quizzical look.

  “It’s a scavenger hunt,” he said. “They’re not real.”

  “Oh.” She smiled at him, as women always did with Perry. “You had me worried.” It took a special type to love Kyle’s intensity, and Burgess, having become a graying older man, was invisible despite his height and his bulk.

  When she was gone, Stan Perry sighed. “To think that my days of flirting with waitresses are over.”

  “Doesn’t it get old?” Kyle asked.

  “Guess I’ll never have a chance to find out.” He stared down at his plate. “I don’t know. Seems like this is all happening too fast. I mean, I can still flirt, can’t I?”

  Burgess and Kyle treated it like a rhetorical question and didn’t answer.

  When their steaks were reduced to a pile of blood and bones—a visual that wasn’t lost on any of them—Kyle said, “So, Hooper. Are we really going out there?”

  “I’m torn,” Burgess said, “between waiting for DeSpain to ID him as the man who was with our girl, or just dropping in to see if his wife is home. And someone needs to talk to the neighbors, to see whether they know what’s up with Ida Mae Wilson.”

  “And whether there really is a wife,” Kyle said.

  They sat for a while, considering. Their sense of urgency made them want to rush it. Their desire to maximize the value of any visit to the investigation as a whole cautioned them to wait.

  “I’ll call over to 109 and see if that picture is ready,” Perry said, taking out his phone. The photo was ready. He arranged for patrol to run it over to Sweety’s, and called DeSpain, who’d said he was working late, to tell him it was coming.

  “Why don’t I call the number Hooper gave you, Joe, and see if anyone answers,” Kyle said. “On my burner, of course.”

  “You carry a burner? Really?” Perry asked. “Why?”

  Burgess thought it was obvious, but waited to see what Kyle would say.

  “So I can call my mistress without leaving footprints in the department’s records.”

  “You have a . . ?” Perry grinned. “Like you’d have time for that.”

  “A motivated man makes time,” Kyle said with a straight face. Even Burgess, who’d known him many years, sometimes got caught by that.

  “Like hell,” Perry said. Then he switched gears. “Hooper’s number,” he said. “Is it different from the one the girl called Shelley gave DeSpain?”

  Burgess checked his notebook, while Perry got out the card. The numbers were different.

  “So let’s call the girl’s number,” Kyle said.

  Perry read off the number. Kyle dialed it. Listened. Shook his head. “No longer in service. But we can get the records.” He looked at Burgess. “Now the number that this Hooper guy gave you.”

  Burgess read it off and Kyle dialed. It rang and rang, but no person, and no answering machine, picked up.

  “Something about this Hooper guy feels very wrong,” Kyle said, and the others agreed.

  What Hooper was up to was a puzzle. First the mysterious visit to 109, then leading the police to Ida Mae Wilson’s house in Wilson’s car. Had Hooper not known he was being followed or had he led them to the house for a reason? Was he just playing games with them? If he was somehow involved, wouldn’t he want to stay under their radar? Criminals played all sorts of games, and often believed they were smarter than the police. But this was flat-out strange. Could it be a strategy to distract them while something else was happening?

  “If we’re going at all, we’re wearing vests and expecting trouble,” Burgess said. “But first, let’s get that photo over to DeSpain.”

  They had coffee while they waited for a response from DeSpain. Fifteen minutes later they had confirmation that the man who had been with Shelley at Sweety’s was the same man claiming to be Charlie Hooper.

  “Let’s take a look at this,” Burgess said. “At where we should be focusing tomorrow. The implants, and Lee’s statement that for her age, the girl had had a lot of sex, and recent sex, suggests someone was prostituting her. Stan, what does Vice say. Are there known traffickers we should be looking at? What about girls who’ve recently been arrested. Young girls. Very young girls. Would they know something? Who’s dealing with trafficking victims at the Preble? Maybe we can come at this from that angle. Has someone seen her? Does someone know her? Her tattoos are pretty distinctive.”

  “Does this mean we’re not checking out Hooper tonight?” Stan said.

  Burgess understood everyone’s frustration. They liked to move on things. Move fast. What had been done to their victim amped that up. It was hard to reign in their impatience, but slow and steady was more likely to get them results.

  Kyle was staring at the candle on their table, watching it flicker, like he was being hypnotized. Someone who didn’t know him might have thought he wasn’t present, until he said, “What about McCann?”

  “The guy who found her?” Perry said.

  “And the guy who wanted to get back out there and look for his ‘missing’ property. The guy whose car was a jumble of clothes, old shoes, dog’s dish, a blanket to protect his seat, all that crap yesterday and today it’s neat as a pin. Could be coincidence, or weekend vs weekday behavior, but I’m not buying it. I would be very interested in seeing Mr. McCann’s trash.”

  Too often, as in this case, they were working on two fronts: both to identify their victim, so they could do victimology, learn about her life, answer the “whys” of her murder; on the other front, there was the search for her killer, a search hampered by their lack of answers about their victim. Someone killing a prostitute was, sadly, not uncommon. Subsequently mutilating the body wasn’t rare, either. It was the lengths the killer or killers had gone to, the choice of where to dump the body, the killer taking the time to pose the body, and then burying the saw not far from the dump site instead of pitching it into a dumpster somewhere. It all made the case unusual. Unusual being a euphemism for damned hard to solve.

  “Tomorrow, Stan, you check in with Vice, recent soliciting busts, and the Prebl
e center. Who’s the new guy on sex trafficking? He should be in the loop.” Burgess shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe you show him those tats and he’s got a name.”

  “On it, boss. Keep me busy as hell. Otherwise, it’s wedding central.” Perry narrowed his eyes. “How come you guys get to live with your women and I’ve got to marry mine?”

  “I tried to marry mine,” Burgess said. “She’s waiting for me to settle down. Or refuses to marry a cop because our lives are too dangerous.”

  “Been there. Done that,” Kyle said. “Marriage, I mean. Probably going there and doing it again. I’m just waiting for the Xanax to kick in.”

  “You’re no help,” Perry complained.

  “Sure we are,” Burgess said. “I’m getting my uniform cleaned and Terry is going to sprinkle rose petals. And we’ll still be here to listen to you bitch, won’t we, Ter? Besides, Stan, you’re having a baby. It’s exciting. Terry can help you with that. My kid arrived at age fifteen, so I’m useless unless you want to hear about how terrifying it is to have a kid about to drive away in the family car.”

  This was a moment, that lull in the investigation when they all relaxed, connected, remembered what their team was all about.

  “Hey, Joe,” Perry said. “We’ve both got our assignments. What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “Seeking advice from a former lady of the night.”

  Perry fanned himself and rolled his eyes. “Maybe you need some Xanax, too. What do you think, Terry?”

  “I think it’s an inspired idea. I think he’s a lucky dog. But she’ll only to talk to Joe anyway, so there’s no sense in being jealous. Even though she’s out of the game, she may have some ideas. Some connections.”

  Burgess hoped so. It was an imposition to go talk to Alana Black, undoubtedly the sexiest woman he’d ever known, about prostitution in Portland. With his help and support, and after some backsliding and causing him and his sister Sandy endless frustration, she’d left that life behind and trained as a massage therapist. She’d gotten her GED, gone to school, and was developing a successful practice. He’d even, with great trepidation, introduced her to his family. That had been Chris’s idea. She was the most generous woman he’d ever known.

  The kids loved Alana. It wasn’t unusual for him to come home to find the four of them in the living room, watching some dumb movie, Neddy snuggled up next to her, while Chris beamed at the scene like exotic, voluptuous Alana was a fourth child. Burgess supposed she sorta was. Ever since the night he’d found sixteen-year-old Alana beaten and bloody in a Portland park on a freezing night, and saved her life, she’d belong to him. Chris called them his “waifs,” the kids he’d rescued over the years.

  The ones who’d lived.

  Fifteen

  Burgess paid the bill and they walked out into a soft July night, the kind of night that reminded him of summer nights growing up and the excitement of being out after dark. Now when he was out after dark, it was usually because something bad had happened. Last night’s fireworks had been nice, and a change from bad things. They already seemed far away.

  As they headed for their cars, Perry said, “Before we call it a night and retire to get our beauty sleep, can we check out Hooper’s place? Just do a knock and talk?”

  “I think it’s Ida Mae Wilson’s place,” Burgess said. “Sure. Vests.”

  Moments like this, he still felt like the dad Perry sometimes called him. His kids impulsive and eager to make something happen, him acting as the sea anchor, responsible for keeping them as safe as he could. The possibility that Hooper had led police to the house deliberately made him nervous. It wasn’t so long ago that he’d been led to a house that was booby trapped. Waiting for the bomb squad to defuse it had been the longest hours of his life.

  First they’d drive the streets around the house, getting a feel for the neighborhood. Then Burgess would take the door, with Kyle as backup, and Perry would take the back, in case anyone ran that way.

  On TV it looks easy, but knocking on a strange door, not knowing what’s on the other side, was one of the most dangerous parts of policing. Right up there with traffic stops. You didn’t just walk up to the door and knock. Unless you’ve gotten lazy or careless about training, you placed yourself strategically to the right or left, depending on whether the door opened in or out. In case the answer was gunfire, those behind you arranged themselves so if you were shot they wouldn’t be next.

  Ida Mae Wilson’s house was a cape with an attached two-car garage, perched on a steep knoll, set well back from the street on a large lot. A curving driveway lead down to the street, the curves masked by large clumps of yew bushes. It was surrounded by something police officers hated—bushy, overgrown shrubs that partially blocked the windows and made access to them difficult. There were privacy hedges along both lot lines, one of cedar and the other scraggly ten-foot lilacs. A very desirable property for someone who liked privacy. He was reminded of Captain Cote’s house. And how easy it had been for bad guys to get at him unobserved.

  The lot was deep and backed up to another deep property. The houses on either side were also shrouded in bushes. There were no lights on in the house or the neighboring houses. They parked a few houses away, geared up, and headed up the drive. Perry headed toward the rear of the house, swinging wide in case there were motion sensor lights. Burgess headed for the door, Kyle behind him and to his left.

  A moment’s pause. He rang the bell, then knocked, announcing “Police, Mrs. Wilson. Please answer the door.”

  He waited, heart pounding.

  No one responded. No lights came on.

  He waited. Vigilant. Listening.

  He heard Kyle slip through the shrubs and up to the windows, cautiously shining his light in, moving methodically from window to window. “Looks empty, Joe,” Kyle whispered before he moved around the corner of the house.

  He heard the muffled voices when Kyle met Perry in the back. Then nothing for so long he went to see what had happened to them, moving quietly and without lights around the side of the house opposite to where Perry had gone. Apparently empty house or not, there was still a chance this was a trap.

  At the back of the house he found Perry crouched in a window well, Kyle standing over him and leaning down, both of them fixed on something inside as Perry played his lights around.

  “What?” he said.

  “The house is empty, except for this. But it’s a big this,” Kyle said, stepping back. “See for yourself.”

  Burgess peered through the dirty window into a basement laundry room. Half the room was a normal room—washer, dryer, shelf for folding laundry, and a laundry cart. The other half was partitioned into a crude wooden box. Though the interior of the box was dark, they could see the end of a cot and a bucket. There was a pool of blood on the floor and broad streaks leading toward a closed door. A lot of blood.

  He’d seen plenty, over the years. Now that plenty was supplying possible narratives. He tried to not rush to conclusions, to let the scenes speak to him, but he couldn’t block the image of a helpless girl being butchered here. His stomach clenched and he regretted his heavy meal. Scenes like the blood promised this might be went down better on an empty stomach.

  “Exigent circumstances, Joe?” Perry said. “Can I kick the door?” There was a vibe in his voice, a Holy Fuck vibe, a regretful, ‘I know I wanted something to happen tonight but I didn’t mean this’ vibe.

  “You bet.”

  All three pulled on gloves before Perry mule-kicked the back door. It burst open, slamming with a crash into a wall. Burgess searched for a light switch. He found it and flipped it on, illuminating a dated kitchen with beige walls stained by decades of tobacco smoke and dirty beige linoleum. There were blood smears across the floor leading to a closed door that likely led to the garage.

  Kyle and Perry fanned out to search the house, reassembling in minutes in the kitchen, where Burgess waited beside a second door he’d opened to reveal basement stairs.

  “Empty,”
Kyle said, “except for two filthy mattresses on the floor in a back room.”

  So much for calling it a night and getting some sleep. Already weary in anticipation of the hours to come, Burgess pulled out his phone and called for their crime scene team, then Vince Melia.

  “Happy fifth of July,” he said when Vince answered. “We may have found the murder scene.”

  “Catch me up.”

  He told Melia about Charlie Hooper’s peculiar visit. The fake license with this address. Hooper, if that was his real name, driving a car registered to Ida Mae Wilson, the record owner of the property. How officers had followed Hooper to this house. How Stan’s interviews had put Hooper at the tattoo shop with the victim. Their decision to do a knock and talk, and what they’d found.

  “We haven’t entered the basement yet. Waiting for Wink and Dani.”

  “One of these days, Wink’s gonna retire. Especially if you Crips keep calling him out at night. Mrs. Wink grows weary.”

  The Crips was the name Burgess had given their team when they were all injured in one way or another and still limping their way through, solving crimes. The name had stuck. Now even their colleagues called them Crips. Still, he always hoped they’d get through an investigation with nothing worse than his bad knee. He figured he’d hurt enough and limped enough. If there was getting shot to be done, someone else could do it.

  “The Crips are weary, too, Vince. We can’t help if it bad guys don’t work nine to five. My cop gut tells me this is going to be a long, bad night. One of those nights when taking my pension and taking up golf looks appealing.”

  “You can’t quit on me, Joe.”

  “Wasn’t planning to.”

  “You’d hate golf,” Melia said.

  “You coming out?”

  Melia sighed. “I’m coming out.”

  “You don’t have to, you know. We’ve got this.”