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

by Flora, Kate;

  Melia was bent over Burgess’s phone, scrolling through the pictures. Scrolling through. Finishing. Going back through them again. Without a word, he handed the phone back, and Burgess, equally wordless, stepped outside to make his call.

  “Hey, Joe,” Chris said.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “It’s a bad one, isn’t it.”

  He couldn’t find the words. “Talk to me,” he said. “Tell me about your day. The kids’ days. I need something normal and decent.”

  Guys were always calling their wives and girlfriends angels. But Burgess meant it. Sometimes tough guys need saving. Chris saved him. Over and over.

  “Sure,” she said, and started talking.

  He leaned against the door frame and listened, eyes closed, the music of her voice soothing him as much as her words.

  “I won’t ask about your day,” she said.

  “No. I just …I just called to say I’d be late. Don’t wait up for me.”

  “Take care,” she said. “The kids will make you a sandwich. I’ll keep the home lights burning.”

  Burgess went to attend to his crime scene.

  Seventeen

  Their companionable steak dinner might have happened in another decade. By the time they finished, he and Kyle and Perry staggered out into a dawning day so utterly done in they could barely make it to their cars. As if it were part of routine police procedure, they each did the same thing—got in their cars, started them, and then just sat there, staring out through their windshields.

  Their conversation about next steps had been nearly monosyllabic. Kyle said, “When?” Perry said, “Yeah?” and Burgess had said, “Noon.” Now, sitting in his car, he remembered the dog. He had a date with a dog well before noon. He could have wept.

  Burgess moved first, heading not for home but for the hospital to see how the girls were doing. He’d gone to the hospital to check on someone or to get patched up so often there ought to be a Joe Burgess room, if not a whole Joe Burgess wing. A place where a bed waited for him, whether he was a patient or just a tired guy who wasn’t sure he could put one more foot in front of the other.

  There was no designated Burgess bed, but there was a kind nurse named Susan, a friend of Chris’s, who ordered him to sit down, brought him coffee and a muffin, and gave him an update on the girls. Two were being treated for exhaustion, starvation, and dehydration. The other two were in in the ICU. One would likely make it. The other? Only time would tell.

  “That poor little evidence tech you sent over to take their pictures? She was crying the whole time.” The woman smiled. “Not like Wink, huh?”

  “No,” Burgess agreed. “Not like Wink.” Poor Dani. Devlin was a rock and she tried so hard to be like him.

  Before he left, he stopped by each bed, as though a tired old cop standing at their bedside could make any difference. Then he went down to the ER, hoping Dr. Sarita Cohen might be around. They had kind of an entangled history. Burgess had once saved her from a scissors-wielding thug, and she’d stitched him up the last time he got shot. He got lucky. For Burgess getting lucky didn’t mean what it meant to most men. It meant getting information. Finding the witness. Having the fingerprints, ballistics, or DNA match. Finding Dr. Cohen in the ER.

  Like the nurse before her, Dr. Cohen insisted he sit down before she’d talk to him.

  “I’m fine, Doctor, really I am,” he insisted.

  She gave him the smile he remembered from before. Despite her crisp professional demeanor, it was both warm and impish. “You’re too tall for me to talk to when you’re standing up, Detective.”

  She was a very small woman, so he sat.

  “I assume you’re here about those girls.”

  He nodded.

  “Physically, I believe that three of them will recover. Emotionally, I cannot say. It will depend on what kind of services they get and how resilient they are. The fourth is still a question mark. She is younger, with less to draw on, and she is in very bad shape. I wish I could give you better news.”

  Burgess wasn’t about to accept “three out of four ain’t bad.” Not that it was in his power to do anything for the poor child. All he could do ensure that whoever killed Mermaid and horribly abused these girls paid the highest price possible.

  He didn’t realize he’d dozed off until he felt her hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him. “Detective. Joe.” She had a musical lilt to her voice. “Go home. Get some sleep. You can’t do good work in this state.”

  He’d never fallen asleep during an interview no matter how tired he was. Was he past his sell-by date?

  “I’m sorry. I’ve never…”

  There was that smile again. “You don’t owe anyone an apology, Joe. Another day for those girls and it might have been a different story. Go home. Burn those clothes. And get some rest.”

  He thanked her and gimped out to his truck. His knee was a fireball and Chris was going be on his case because he hadn’t worn his brace. At least he had someone to go home to, even if she would yell at him. He rolled down the window, hoping wind blowing in his face would help keep him awake. It was after five a.m. when he climbed the steps, shucked off his clothes, put on his ratty old robe, and let himself in. The house was quiet as he tiptoed to the bathroom. Clean underwear was laid out on top of the hamper with a note: We missed you.

  Smiling, he crumpled it up and stepped into the shower. Sometimes, after working a scene outside on a cold night, it would take a long, hot shower to begin to warm him up. This morning, the long shower was to rinse off the crime scene stench mixed with the sweat of working in that humid basement. To steam clean his lungs so every breath wasn’t blood and decomp.

  Then he slipped on the underwear, hung up his robe, plugged in his phone, and went to bed.

  When they weren’t spooned together, Chris slept on her back, one arm flung up beside her head, the hair that had escaped from her braid forming a golden brown halo around her head. He could watch her for hours. He didn’t have hours, though. He had a little over three hours before his date with Kiki.

  Kiki was beautiful, but nothing for Chris to get jealous about, since she was a German shepherd.

  He set his alarm and climbed into bed. Chris turned and he wrapped himself around her, asleep in an instant.

  Long before he was ready, his alarm roused him, catapulting him into his family’s morning chaos. He lay a moment, eavesdropping as Nina and Dylan questioned Chris about last night. Heard her saying, “I don’t know. He said it was so bad he didn’t want to talk about it. Now, he’s still very tired and he has to go out again soon, so no questions, okay? We can talk about it when he’s ready.”

  Then Neddy’s voice, “Can I take some coffee to my Joe?”

  That was what Neddy called him. Burgess had no idea why, but there was something special about having a kid who’d say, “My Joe, can we go to the park?” His Joe did what he could. When he could. He never forgot what Nina and Neddy had been through.

  He dragged himself out of bed, and it felt like dragging, and over to the pile of clothes Chris had put out. Right on top was her wordless admonition—his knee brace. Burgess had never asked Chris to do this for him. Not this. Not his laundry. Not help him raise his son. He’d been a bachelor for a long time. He could take care of himself. Still, he was grateful for the way her caretaking made his life better.

  He was buttoning his shirt when the door opened and Neddy came in carrying a cup of coffee. The boy presented it like a gift for a king. “For my Joe.”

  “Thank you, Neddy. I really need this.”

  “Chris says you had a bad night last night but we’re not supposed to ask you about it. Are you okay?” The boy’s anxious eyes roved over him, making sure he wasn’t shot or cut or otherwise damaged. Already a cop’s kid, though Neddy wanted to be a fireman when he grew up.

  “I’m fine. Except for being tired. And…” He raised the cup, “…needing this. This morning I’m going to be doing a search with a really smart K9
named Kiki. Someday, maybe I can take you to meet her. Would you like that?”

  “Yes, my Joe. Are you going to find a lost person?”

  “More likely a lost button. It depends on what Kiki’s nose locates. Dogs have amazing noses, you know. Thousands of times better than ours. That’s why the police have dogs. To help us find lost things and lost people.”

  Neddy grinned. “Do you ever find money?”

  “Not very often.” He finished the coffee and bent to put on his shoes. “It would be nice to find money. But I couldn’t keep it anyway.”

  “Peter’s dad has one of those magnetic things. You know, the ones people use to find things that are buried in the ground. I’d like to have one of those.”

  Chris stuck her head in. “Neddy. Time for camp. Morning, Joe.” She crossed the room and kissed him. He was such a sucker for this woman. She kisses him good morning and he’s ready to blow off Kiki and his whole schedule. It was probably a good thing she had to go to work. “Here,” she said, holding out her hand, two painkillers in her palm. “And here.” A glass of water. “Susan says you were dead on your feet when she saw you this morning.”

  “I think…” He kissed her again. “I think I’m still alive.”

  He hugged Neddy. “Have fun at camp.” Headed for the kitchen. He felt like Methuselah’s grandfather. Dylan and Nina were waiting, shoulder to shoulder, waiting to give him the family body scan before they departed for their respective days.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Toast,” said Nina, pointing to a plate.

  “I don’t have…”

  “Toast, Dad,” Dylan said. “Or we don’t let you leave.”

  Burgess looked at Chris. “This is what it means to have a family? I’m being bullied by people who aren’t old enough to vote?”

  “Think of yourself as a lucky man, and eat the toast.” Chris smiled, one of her slow growing ones that was like the sun coming up.

  Burgess was no fool. He ate his toast.

  Then he took a trash bag, went to the entry, and bagged up yesterday’s clothes. He tied off the bag and left it there. These clothes were not coming into his house. He should have cleaned his gun. His holster. His badge holder. A stink like last night’s clings to everything. There was no time.

  As he climbed in the truck and headed out to Stroudwater Park for his date with Kiki, and for what he hoped was the last time, he wondered if Kyle and Perry were able to get some sleep.

  Eighteen

  Kiki and her handler were waiting. The handler was in neutral mode. Kiki, ears up, was ready to take on the world. The officer whose job it was to ruin the local runners’ day once again looked like a man who’d been gnawed on by rats.

  “I hope to heck this is thing is done now, Sarge,” he said. “I don’t think I can keep the ravening hordes out much longer.”

  Burgess liked the phrase “ravening hordes.” Used to refer to walkers and runners, it conjured up quite the image of those half-naked runners with their bright clothes and shoes also carrying maces and swords, perhaps even carrying flaming torches and wearing those dumb horned Viking hats. Picturing it made his morning.

  After an hour of Kiki’s enthusiastic sniffing around the dump site, Burgess was ready to call it a day, but just as he was about to suggest to the handler that it was likely there wasn’t anything to be found, she gave an “I’ve got it!” bark and lay down.

  The handler looked at him and shrugged. “She doesn’t like to give up.” He reached down with a gloved hand and felt around in the old brown leaves. Burgess, watching, thought he was going to come up empty-handed. Instead he held out a small object to Burgess, then praised the dog and gave her a treat.

  Burgess dug out his reading glasses—a new and detested addition to his life—and squinted down at it. It was a pin, the kind organizations handed out as a marker of years of service or to mark a promotion. It was a simple thing, white enamel, with the number fifteen in red. There was something on the back, but it would take a magnifying glass to read it.

  “Well. Something,” he said. “Some genius back at 109 is bound to tell us what it means.”

  He bagged the pin, thanked Kiki and her handler, released the weary cop who was protecting the spot from the public, and heaved himself into the Explorer. As he headed back to his desk, stopping to arm himself with a large black coffee, he was aware, once again, what was missing in this case—Captain Paul Cote. No Cote at the scene last night. No wake-up call this morning. It was too good to be true. Maybe Cote had permanently switched his focus to Stan Perry and Perry had gotten that wake-up call. Cote wouldn’t call Kyle. Kyle had been with Burgess when they dragged him off to the hospital.

  He hoped Kyle and Perry were getting some sleep. Hoped they’d show up around noon rested and with clear heads. His felt like someone had stuffed his with cotton.

  Thinking of Cote reminded him of Bambi Bailey. He wondered what Cote had done about that. He was sure she’d been bailed out immediately. What he wasn’t so sure of was whether someone with authority had taken away her car keys for the benefit of the traveling—and walking—public. Pretty, spoiled young girls like that always thought they were untouchable.

  He was gulping lukewarm coffee and waiting for it to kick in, trying in a fuzzy-minded way to prioritize the direction of today’s investigative efforts when he came around a curve and almost drove right into a white pickup stopped in the middle of the road. A man was standing in the road beside it, head in his hands, staring at what was left of a blue BMW that was mostly wrapped around a tree.

  Burgess stood on the brakes, and swerved, missing the truck by inches. Then he backed up, flipped on his lights, and called dispatch to send officers, an ambulance, all the personnel needed for a bad accident.

  “Police officer,” he said to the stunned man, who was bleeding from a bad cut on his head. “What happened here?”

  The man pointed with his bloody hand to a side road about two hundred yards away. “She came flying out of there, going about fifty. She was all over the road. She swerved into my lane. I braked and swung to the left but there wasn’t time.” He grabbed a breath. Staring at the crumpled blue car. At the blood on his hand. He was shaking. “Oh my god! There was nothing I…I don’t think she even saw me. She was looking down at her phone. She slid along my truck and swung right into that tree. Never tried to brake or anything. Honest, officer. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  The man was practically in tears. “It just…I just got out of my truck. I haven’t…I don’t think I can look…Can you see if she’s okay?”

  Burgess patted the man on the shoulder, gave him one of the white cotton handkerchiefs he always carried, and pointed to a patch of grass beyond the sidewalk. “There’s help coming. Why don’t you sit down over there while I check things out.”

  Handkerchief pressed against his bleeding face, the man stumbled out of the road and sat on the grass. Burgess walked to the BMW. It was a mangled mess. He bent and peered in, trying to get a visual on the driver. He already knew who it was. He’d done his best to keep this from happening, but the world has a soft spot for pretty girls. Especially pretty, rich and well-connected girls.

  The airbag had done its best, but things didn’t look good. He reached in. Checked for a pulse. The faint, thready response was too much like another neck he’d recently checked. Against his will, the judgmental side of his nature was comparing this girl, who had everything and carelessly threw it away, with those small girls last night, who had had no hand in their fate.

  “Get a grip, Burgess,” he told himself.

  “Help is on the way, Bambi. Just sit tight and we’ll get you out of there.” He pulled out another handkerchief and pressed it gently against her bleeding face. He stayed crouched by the car, talking to her, hoping she could hear, hoping it might keep her with them, ignoring the angry horns of commuters and the commotion of the curious who had gathered on the sidewalk, until patrol arrived to manage the scene.

 
; The supervisor, Jeff Russell, who took charge and began directing things, just gave him a look. “You doing traffic now, too, Burgess?”

  “Just driving by,” he said. “It’s all yours, and you’re welcome to it. Her name’s Bambi Bailey, by the way. I stopped her yesterday in this same spot after she nearly ran me off the road and then swerved on the sidewalk and hit a stroller. Seems she was eating cereal and needed two hands for that. I arrested her for inattentive driving and a marked lane violation, as well as refusing to provide her license and registration. She should have been off the road today.”

  Russell barked some instructions to his guys, and more into his phone. “Connections?”

  “Senator’s niece.”

  “Thanks a hell of a lot, Burgess.”

  Burgess shrugged. “We do our jobs, Jeff. Then people who think they know better or care more about ass kissing screw it up. I hope she makes it.”

  Free to go, he turned toward the Explorer.

  “Yeah,” Russell said, “If you believe in miracles.”

  “The miracle I’m hoping for is already over at the hospital.”

  “Yeah.” Russell spat out some more instructions. “Heard about that. Every time you think you’ve seen it all.”

  It was dangerous to think you’d seen it all, Burgess thought, as he got in the truck. It tempted fate to throw something worse in your face.

  He drove the rest of the way in a meditative silence, the background of the radio’s call and response the soundtrack of his life. He was almost back at 109 before he noticed that it was a beautiful July morning.

  He needed to stop drifting and get his head back in the game. The coffee hadn’t done a thing and his stomach said he’d better not drink any more. It was lucky he’d been doing this so long he could work on autopilot. On autopilot he took the pin that Kiki had found to the evidence room and logged it in. Asked Rocky Jordan to grab the records on the two phone numbers they’d gotten yesterday—the one that Shelley had given DeSpain, and the one that the man who called himself Hooper had given Burgess. He also asked Rocky to find out what he could about Ida Mae Wilson and the property they’d been in last night.