by Flora, Kate;
“My fault,” Burgess lied. “We took his phone away. He just got the messages.”
“It shouldn’t be too long now. She’s doing great.”
As he climbed back in the Explorer, Burgess was wondering how anyone could willingly bring a child into this screwed up world. Then reminded himself that “willingly” implied far more awareness and responsibility than many of the people he dealt with were capable of. That he’d brought a child into the world and never knew.
He stopped at 109, found Kyle, and told him to go home and have dinner with his family. Some time sitting at his desk seemed to have brought him down a notch.
“How’s Stan?”
“Lily’s in labor and he’s with her. I hope he holds it together. She’ll never forgive him if he can’t see this through.”
“Wow,” Kyle said. “Big changes ahead. So, when do you want me back?”
“What’s good for you?”
“Eight?”
Kyle smiled. “You’re getting soft, Joe.”
“I’m getting old, Ter. Can’t run forever on three hours sleep anymore.”
“You planning to sleep through family dinner?”
“Wouldn’t that be a feat.”
His kitchen was an orderly chaos, as an assembly line of pizzas were dressed and popped in the oven. Neddy and a friend had piled hamburger and pepperoni and cheese on a pizza and now were using pepper strips and olives to make face. Cherry and Maddie were going strictly vegetarian. Chris and Sandy had glasses of red wine and were leaning against the counter, watching.
He set the bag with the Coke and Diet Coke on the counter, not missing Chris’s smile because he’d remembered.
Chris set her glass down and hugged him. His sister hugged him and then gave him a sisterly assessment. “You look like hell,” she declared. “When are you going to start taking care of yourself?”
“Just as soon as people stop doing inhuman things to each other, Sandy.” It was the same conversation they’d had as long as he’d been a cop. It had long ago grown old.
“My Joe,” Neddy said, “look what we made.”
He admired the pizza, hugged his nieces, and settled into a chair to watch. It felt so good to be in a chair, in a house, and not in the truck or at his desk. He didn’t remember this chair being so comfortable.
“Wine, Joe?” Chris asked.
In a case like this, “Whine Joe” would be more apt. He and Kyle both got bummed when people who could have prevented bad things from happening sat on their hands. “Love to, but I have to go back in.”
“How is it going?”
“We really moved ahead today. I think we’re getting closer, but now everything has to be followed up.”
She nodded. “How are those poor girls doing?”
“I saw them a few hours ago. Three of them are doing well. I tried out my Spanish, all one word of it, and one of them laughed at me.”
She didn’t ask about the fourth. He’d told her enough.
“Oh, and Lily’s in labor. Stan’s with her at the hospital. The nurse said it shouldn’t be long now.”
Chris shook her head. “How’s he taking it?”
“He’s in shock. I walked him right to maternity and handed him over to a no-nonsense nurse just to be sure he didn’t bolt and run.”
He thought about Stan’s day, how the young detective had gone from a gruesome autopsy to an accidental overdose to the labor room. Stan was young and tough, but it was a lot for anyone.
“That poor girl,” Chris said. “I know she wanted to be married before the baby came. Still, it’s exciting news. She’s been getting ready for a wedding. I wonder if she’s ready for a baby. Do you think they have a crib and a car seat and stuff?”
Burgess had no idea. Cribs and car seats had never come up in Stan Perry’s conversation. “I wonder if they’ll still go ahead with the wedding.” he said.
“Women like weddings,” Chris said. “Do they know if it’s a boy or girl?”
“I don’t think they wanted to know.”
“I’d want the surprise, too,” she said.
“I think we got plenty surprised,” he said. “And they’re all perfect bundles of joy.”
Chris came and kissed him, resting her cheek against his for a minute. She had longed for a family and had been unable to have children of her own. Adopting Nina and Neddy had been important—and life altering—for her, and had forced both of them to deal with whether their still new relationship could handle becoming a family of four. Then Dylan had arrived. They now lived in a state of constant chaos. Luckily, it was often enough happy chaos.
When she moved away, he felt momentarily bereft. Then she and Sandy went back to drinking wine and supervising the kids. He rested his head against the back of his chair and fell asleep.
He woke to a crash and a voice saying, “Oh my God!”
The crash was his briefcase being knocked over. The “oh my God” was from his niece, Cherry, who was staring at the photo of Shelley Minor’s tattoo. “Oh, Uncle Joe. Is this the girl who got killed? I know that girl.”
Twenty-Five
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said. He crossed the room, still groggy from sleep, and fumbled the papers back into his briefcase, glad she hadn’t seen some of the more graphic pictures. “How do you know her?”
“From school. She’s two years behind me. She’s a freshman. But those tattoos were hard to miss. That and how there’s a long weekend and when she comes back to school, she’s got these great big breasts. She was really shy and quiet, Uncle Joe. She didn’t seem like the type to do that. To want big breasts. She wasn’t just shy and quiet. She was like a beaten dog. I talked to my teacher about it and she told me they were taking care of it, the assistant principal was going to speak to her parents, and I shouldn’t worry. But it never looked like it got taken care of.”
He wanted to say “you should have called me,” but it was too late for that. No sense in making her feel guilty. Besides, she’d stepped up when the adults evidently hadn’t.
“When was this?” he asked.
Cherry considered. Though it horrified her mother, she was planning a career in public safety, aiming for the FBI, and she liked to be precise. It was either the FBI or becoming a singer. She had an amazing voice. “The tattoos appeared in late fall or early winter, like November, December or January. The breasts, I think, were in February. Shelley, that’s her name, I think, was a very pretty girl. Dark curly hair and bright brown eyes. Guys were all over her, especially after she got the breasts. She never looked happy, though.”
He thanked her. Got out his notebook, wrote down the name of Cherry’s school, of the teacher Cherry had spoken to, and of the assistant principal. Took a moment to say, “Now don’t go all Nancy Drew on me, okay?” and waited for her to agree. It was almost eight. He’d come home for family dinner and slept right through it. He looked guiltily at Chris. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“We thought it was sweet,” she said.
Oh Christ. Sweet? This was the second time he’d fallen asleep today. Maybe it was time for a checkup. He’d resisted this as long as he could, but maybe it was time to admit that he wasn’t a kid anymore, and start taking better care of himself. Taking care of himself meant rest, exercise, and healthy eating. He resisted because he believed indulging himself meant depriving victims of his full energy and attention. He couldn’t figure out how anyone did healthy eating, exercise, and yoga or meditation when the demands of the job were so great. People always said getting old was not for the weak. Neither was working homicides.
“Here.” She shoved a mug of coffee in his hand, coffee that smelled infinitely better than the stuff they had at work. Then she pointed to a plate on the counter. “Pizza. Neddy and Alex fixed it for you. I think it has every possible topping on it and maybe a few Legos and marbles. Eat it.”
When most people said “Eat it,” that got his dander up. People said a lot of bad things to cops that cops were expected to suck it
up and ignore. When Chris said “eat it,” he did what he was told. Burgess was trying to do a better job on the domestic front. Besides, it would make her smile, and Chris’s smile was worth it. Never mind that lunch was a long time ago, and the cop’s rule was “eat when you can.”
He ate the pizza, and didn’t find any marbles or Legos. He was grateful for that. He didn’t have time for a trip to the dentist. Then he hugged everyone in sight and headed out.
The unintended nap had left him feeling surprisingly good, and the pleasant summer night helped. It also helped that he got back to 109 without a single idiotic or aggravating encounter with pedestrians or other motorists. Kyle was at this desk, worrying something on the computer. He sorted through his messages. Nothing significant. Rocky Jordan had left him a folder. Depending on what Rocky had found, that might determine their evening’s activities and tomorrow’s agenda.
“Any word on Stan’s baby?” he asked Kyle.
“Nothing yet. But babies take time. You eat?”
“I’m consummate family man, Ter. I walked in, sat down, and fell asleep while they made pizzas.” He stretched. “Chris didn’t mind, and I feel so much better. Want to sit in the conference room and talk about this?
Rocky’s file was a potential gold mine, assuming there was pleasure in the endless labor of mining. He had a license number, photo, home address, and employment information for Marilyn Dornan. She drove a three year old Toyota Corolla. License photos are always awful, but from hers he thought he was seeing something Shirley Evans hadn’t mentioned—that Marilyn Dornan was quite attractive. He had Charlie Dornan’s driving record, which should have kept him from ever getting behind the wheel. His license was currently suspended. The license he’d shown Burgess was a good fake, but if he ever handed that license over to an officer at a traffic stop, the number would bring up Ida Mae Wilson, and he’d be toast. Rocky had also run Charles Hooper, and there things got even more convoluted. There were several Charles Hoopers, two of whom had Ida Mae’s address. One address was Dornan’s. The other had a photo of a man Burgess had never seen.
Rocky had run the plates on the black town car numerous witnesses reported seeing. The plates came back to a 2003 Pathfinder that had been totaled in 2008. The registered owner of that vehicle was a John Delude. Records showed that Mr. Delude was deceased. A woman named Nancy Delude, perhaps a widow, was still shown as living at that address. It had probably been burned by now, or gone for a swim, but Burgess put out a BOLO on the town car. Men arrogant enough to run prostitutes in a residential neighborhood might have developed a sense of immunity.
He had enough messages to paper a room, if there was a soul in the world who might want to live with infinite repetitions of black lined Pepto-Bismol pink. As always, there was nothing urgent or even interesting, until he got to the last message. One that made his heart sink. It was from the translator at the hospital. One of the girls, the one named Sofia who spoke for them, had asked if the police knew where her littlest sister Bella was.
Another missing child and Burgess had no idea where to look.
He looked at his watch. It was eight-thirty. Not too late to pay a visit to Charlie Hooper, or Charlie Dornan, or Charlie Wilson. Whatever he was calling himself today. Maybe he had another batch of girls stashed somewhere at his house. Burgess would have preferred to prep for the visit by first calling on Ida Mae Wilson, but it was too late in the evening for that. Those senior residence communities buttoned up early.
“If they were servicing Johns out of that house, Wink and Dani must have found dozens of fingerprints,” Burgess said.
“But all the furniture is gone. Oh. Yeah. And I forgot to tell you,” Kyle said. “Wink says they only got through the basement and the kitchen. They were going back out today, but Dani had to go to Augusta, and Wink’s wife had a medical incident and he had to take her to the doctor. They’ll go back out tomorrow.”
Burgess had an uneasy feeling about that. Their suspects couldn’t know how much had, or hadn’t, been processed, but the crime scene tape was still up and the house was sealed. No one had processed the garage yet. Who knew what they might still find? What he did know was that suspects had an annoying habit of covering their tracks by burning buildings and cars. He was surprised someone hadn’t reported a burned out town car yet.
“If that house isn’t processed yet, I’d like to have patrol sitting on it.”
“Shift commander will be pissed.”
“Yup,” Burgess said. “And keeping patrol happy is my first consideration in life. If I were Dornan and his buddy, I’d have burned it by now.”
“I’ll make the call,” Kyle said.
Burgess stared gloomily at the notebook of reports that represented their investigation. Everything they’d learned so far seemed to confirm that their victim was Shelley Minor, but the best proof would be DNA or dental records. Those most likely to know who her dentist was were her social worker at DHHS or her foster parents. They were waiting on the search warrant, the presentation of which would royally piss off the local DHHS branch. Not that Burgess cared. He wanted to move now, but that would have to wait for tomorrow. He felt like they were circling around two men, Charlie Dornan and another, who were at the center of this thing.
At least now they had an address for Dornan. If it wasn’t another fake.
“Want to take a ride with me, Terry, or do you want to go home and we’ll pick this up in the morning?” Burgess asked.
“Ride,” Kyle said. “I need to move on this. I feel like we’re spinning our wheels. Or playing Whack a Mole.”
“Let’s drop Stan’s car back at the hospital. He may need it,” Burgess said. “Dani left the keys on Stan’s desk.”
They dropped the car and texted Perry about where to find it. Then they headed to Dornan’s.
Ida Mae Wilson’s Prius was parked beside a white Corolla in a driveway to the left of a small, one-story cape. The yard and house were plain and neat. No gardens. Flowering shrubs. Lawn ornaments. There were lights on inside, and the busy blue light and muffled sounds of a TV. Though they were ostensibly calling on a couple seeking information about their foster daughter, Burgess approached the door the way he’d do any potentially dangerous knock and talk, while Kyle slipped around the house to the rear in case someone decided to slip out.
Burgess rang the bell. Waited, and when there was no response, he knocked loudly. The lights stayed on. The TV stayed on. But no one came to the door. He knocked again. Sometimes TVs were so loud people didn’t hear. Sometimes they fell asleep in front of the TV. Sometimes they didn’t answer their doors because bad things had happened. When nothing brought a response, he moved to the right, over to the picture window, and peered through a gap in the curtains into the room where the loud TV was playing.
There were two people sitting on a deep sofa facing the TV. They sat at opposite ends, like they didn’t want to get too close to one another. The sofa was white. The man was on the left side, his head was tipped back like he was sleeping, but blood had splattered the white upholstery. The woman was on the right, her head slumped sideways in what should have been an uncomfortable position. There, too, the upholstery was stained red. With the delicious sickness of cop humor, the dark stuff that kept them sane in the face of horror, Burgess thought they’d made a decorating mistake in choosing white upholstery.
Burgess called for to Kyle to join him, then got out his phone and called Dispatch to send patrol, Medcu, the crime scene van and evidence techs. He called Vince Melia, who wasn’t on a boat out of cell phone range this time, brought him up to speed on the situation, and asked him to call the medical examiner.
He told Melia what it looked like. “But Vince, we’re not jumping to conclusions. We don’t know what we have yet, but it is going to be a long night.”
Then he pulled on gloves and tried the door.
It wasn’t locked.
He turned the knob and stepped into a narrow carpeted hall. The kitchen was straight ahead,
the bedrooms on his left, and the living room on his right.
Kyle went to clear the house while Burgess walked a narrow path close to the wall, avoiding as much of the carpet as possible in case there were footprints or other evidence, until he stood beside the loud TV surveying the couple on the couch. Despite the blood and the damage, he recognized the man who had called himself Charlie Hooper. Now that he was this close, he knew he didn’t need to cross the room and check for pulses. The woman had shoulder-length wavy brown hair, pink lipstick, and two bullet holes in her forehead. The back of the man’s head was blown off, blood and brains spattering the wall behind him. A gun lay on the sofa near his hand.
Burgess focused on that initial analysis, the time when he surveyed the crime scene. The positions of their bodies. The spatter patterns behind the man’s head and on the sofa. Where the blood had oozed from hers. What they wore. Were they dressed for work or leisure? Were they wearing shoes? Was any clothing disarranged, possibly indicating a struggle. Where the gun was. The position of the man’s hands. The condition of the carpet—freshly vacuumed. The slightly dirty shoeprints in the thick, light carpet pile. The Dornans left their shoes by the door. The volume of the TV. Where the remote was.
Was there anything on the coffee table? What was the condition of the room? Were there signs of a struggle?
Taking it all in and getting his first gut reactions.
Kyle joined him, following the same careful route along the wall, silently doing his own analysis. “It’s recent,” Kyle said. “Look at the blood.” He pointed to the screen, where CSI was playing. “They can do this in less than forty-five minutes.”
“Get lab results instantly, too. Well, they can have this one,” Burgess said. “I’ve seen enough homicide and other brutality this week. Besides, I might have a hot date.”
Still without a word, they retraced their route and stepped outside.
Burgess called Dispatch and canceled the ambulance. No reason to have EMTs tromping through the scene so they could declare the obvious fact that this couple was dead.