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

by Flora, Kate;

  “I will ask. As I said, I am approaching this very gently, because it makes them upset, and they’ve been subjected to so much already.”

  It looked like they’d reached a dead end, and they were on their feet and heading for the door when she said, “I will have to ask some questions to clarify, but I think that this other man may have had a dog. Or there was something about a dog. Someone brought a dog. I think it scared them.”

  So now they were looking for a flashy dresser with an ugly disposition and a dog. People who got their information about investigations from TV probably thought that was enough to let them find the man. Never mind that no one had a description or a photo, and he was driving a car with a license plate registered to a dead man.

  Burgess was wondering whether they ought to revisit Cary McCann, the man who’d found the body when the translator shared one more piece of data. “Sofia says there was a conversation in which she heard one of the men say the word ‘teacher’ but she can’t remember which of them it was.”

  He and Kyle exchanged glances. It was time to check out the faculty and staff at Shelley Minor’s school. That task had gotten sidelined in the midst of their series of emergencies.

  “Has there been an update about Maria’s condition?” he asked. He could have checked with the ICU himself, but he didn’t want her—or the girls—to think that they didn’t care.

  Clara Sanchez shook her head. “I do not think there has been much progress. Sofia is very worried but she tries to hide it so she won’t upset Bella. She’s a very brave girl. She thinks it is her job to look out for all of them, since she is the oldest. Only fifteen, and she thinks she is responsible for four other girls. When I was fifteen, I was worried about being too fat and whether my hair was too curly.”

  Burgess looked at Kyle, glad she couldn’t read his mind. When he was fifteen, he’d just been excited by the idea of girls. He didn’t notice too fat or too curly. He noticed they were these amazing and frustrating creatures who made his body do embarrassing things. He did not share this thought with Clara Sanchez.

  They thanked the translator, got ice cream and delivered it to the four girls, and headed back to the Explorer.

  Thirty-Four

  They stopped on the way out to see if Dr. Cohen was there. She was, and she was still smiling, at least until Burgess asked about Bella. Then the smile vanished.

  “If I hadn’t taken an oath to do no harm,” she said. Then she stopped. “You’ll see. It’s in the report. I’ll send you the reports on all the girls when they’re ready. The ones who did this? They are the ones who died last night?”

  “We believe some of the people who brutalized these children are dead,” Burgess said. “We are trying to find out who else was involved.”

  “Please do,” she said. “It is all sickening. There would not be this harm to children if there weren’t men willing pay for it. Maybe you can catch some of them as well? And while you are doing that, promise me you’ll take care of yourselves.” She wasn’t looking at Burgess, but at Kyle. “You wear it like a black cape, Joe, and in the waves of anger you give off. Terry carries it like a monster in his belly. If he isn’t careful, it eats him inside.”

  “You can see all that from looking at us?” Kyle said.

  “Physician and magician,” she said, regaining her smile. She made flapping motions with her hands. “Get out of my emergency room, and don’t you dare come back injured.” She waved one hand at the controlled chaos around her. “I have enough to do.”

  They all had enough to do. He and Terry got in the truck and then just sat there. “What next?” Kyle said.

  “We could go in so many directions,” Burgess said, watching the flood of people coming toward the hospital. New fathers with jaunty steps surrounded by people hunched with worry and despair. “I’m thinking our first stop is lunch. Something to cushion the monster so it doesn’t eat you alive.”

  “Good plan. Though I wonder how she missed the monster in your belly,” Kyle said. “I think we all have them. The day we graduate from the academy each of us is given a monster to swallow. Some guys and gals manage to cough them up. Some try to drown the monster with alcohol. Most of us just become hosts who have to tend the monster.”

  “I’m fine when my monster is sleeping, which is most of the time. When it wakes, there’s hell to pay. Where do you want to eat?” Burgess asked.

  “Nowhere yet,” Kyle said. “I’m hungry, but I’m hungrier for answers. Before we eat, let’s swing around to the insurance company and check in on Cary McCann. I want to get a picture we can take back to the girls. See if they recognize him. We can ask what he was looking for out on the trail and whether he ever found it.”

  Burgess was just as eager to start moving this thing. “Let’s go.”

  While Burgess drove, Kyle called up the information about the car so they could find it in the lot. These days, there was a Prius on every block. In a sea of blue Priuses, the plate number would be helpful.

  “Something funny here,” Kyle said, peering at the screen.

  “Funny as in peculiar?”

  “Yup. The guy in the license photo doesn’t look a lot like the guy I interviewed at 109.”

  Burgess had been hoping to make some progress. Now he felt gloom descending. “Did anyone check his license at 109?”

  “I don’t know,” Kyle said. “You and I were out at the scene. We’ll have to ask the officer who drove him to 109. And maybe Vince. I’m guilty of assuming that that was already done, so I didn’t ask him for ID myself. What if we all did that?”

  There was silence in the car, both realizing that this was the kind of small carelessness that screwed up investigations and let bad guys walk. The chance for things to slip through cracks was why Burgess liked to keep things small and tight. They already knew that Charlie Dornan was using a fake ID. That should have made them more suspicious. But they’d seen Dornan’s ID after McCann’s interview. McCann’s car had appeared the next day at McCann’s employer’s parking lot, though admittedly stripped of all the items that had been there when it was parked at the Stroudwater trailhead. The plates were registered to McCann at McCann’s address. So, other than his behavior—slightly suspicious but mostly belligerent asshole—why would they check further?

  Because their spidey senses had told them something about the man was off. The cop’s sixth sense, or cop gut, was something to be listened to. They’d let themselves be too busy. Now, as they cruised the sprawling lot, looking for the right blue Prius, Burgess knew they were both hoping they’d get inside, ask for Cary McCann, and the person who appeared would be the man who had found Michele Minor’s body. Not some puzzled fellow with a crazy story about how someone was using his identity or the assertion that he and his car had been together, or out of town, on the Fourth of July.

  After driving around for what felt like miles, they found the car. Assured that McCann was at work, they pulled to the curb outside the door and parked. A slovenly guy in a security guard’s uniform slouched over to tell them they couldn’t park there. Despite the kind of neatness and authority the uniform called for, the man was unshaven and smelled like he was sweating out last night’s booze.

  “Hey,” he called. “No way. You can’t park there.”

  Burgess got out as Kyle threw the Police Business sign onto the dash. Maybe the guy couldn’t read, because he came right up to the car, leaned over, scanned the sign, and repeated his words. “Nope. Don’t care what business you’re from. You can’t park there.”

  “We’re parking here,” Burgess said, showing the man his badge. “You really want to argue about that?”

  “I got my orders,” the man said truculently.

  “Me, too,” Burgess said. He stepped past the man and headed for the door, Kyle right beside him.

  “I told you,” the man said. “Now I gotta call a tow truck.”

  “Good luck with that,” Kyle called back as they pulled open the dark glass doors and stepped from summe
r sauna into air conditioning’s icy blast.

  A middle-aged woman with a pleasant face greeted them and asked how she could help. Get someone to fire that oaf outside, Burgess thought. He showed her his badge. “Detective Sergeant Burgess, Portland police. This is Detective Kyle. We’d like to speak with Cary McCann.”

  “Let me find him for you,” she said, sliding her finger down a directory.

  She picked up her phone and called a number, spoke quietly, and looked up at them. “He’ll be right down.” She indicated a seating area with comfortable looking black sofas and chairs, a table with magazines, and a few large trees in pots. “If you’d like to sit while you wait. Can I get you some water?”

  Good old fashioned courtesy. It was a nice change from the tarted up, insolent airheads so many businesses employed these days. The ones who could barely pull their attention away from their phones long enough to answer a question. “That would be very kind,” Burgess said.

  They took some seats. The woman brought cold bottles of water. And they waited.

  Even before he’d crossed the room to greet them, it was clear that Cary McCann was not the man they were looking for. He was an overweight twenty-something with longish mahogany hair and nerdy glasses. He had a friendly smile, seemed unfazed by a visit from the police, and initiated the conversation even before they’d introduced themselves. “Is this about my stolen wallet?” he said, setting a bottle of water down on the table next to Kyle’s and shaking hands.

  “It might be,” Burgess said. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

  “Sure.” McCann plunked himself down on a sofa across from them and waited for their questions.

  Kyle was pretending to check something on his screen. Burgess knew he was really taking McCann’s picture. Then he put the phone away.

  “On July fourth,” Burgess said, “a man identifying himself as Cary McCann called the police, reporting that he had found a body in Stroudwater Park—”

  “It wasn’t me,” McCann interrupted. “I wasn’t around on the fourth. My wife and I took a few days down on the Cape. Her parents have a place there. We left on the first, came back early on the fifth because I had a special project to finish.” He paused. Corrected himself. “That I’m still finishing.”

  “Did you take your car?”

  McCann looked puzzled, but he answered the question. “No. We took hers. She just got a new car, a Mini convertible, and we thought it would be fun to make the drive in that. Which it was. So nope. The little blue Prius spent the holiday in my garage.”

  Burgess flipped through his notes and found the address they had for McCann. He read it and said, “Is this your address?”

  “It is. But I’m getting concerned. Can you tell me what this is about?”

  Burgess realized that Rocky Jordan, who’d collected the information about Cary McCann, never saw the man, and assuming they hadn’t asked McCann for photo ID, Vince Melia, who had conveyed the results of Rocky’s search to them, had never seen the license. That still left the mystery of why the man claiming to be Cary McCann was driving a car actually registered to the real Cary McCann. His head was starting to hurt, which might be the enormity of the case or simply that he needed to eat and get some coffee.

  “Since you were going to be away, did you let anyone else use your car?”

  McCann, looking puzzled, shook his head. “I know it sounds funny, but I’m pretty attached to that car. I don’t loan it to my friends. Learned not to the hard way. See, Annie and I, we’re not like a lot of our friends. We have our own condo, and decent cars and real jobs, when a lot of them are still camping out in their parents’ basements and trying to get out of the gig economy. So it can get pretty old, friends asking to borrow the car, or if I can help them move their stuff. After I loaned it to one friend and he brought it back filthy and the seats covered with dog hair, I decided I wasn’t doing that anymore.”

  He ducked his head and gave them an engaging grin. “TMI, huh?”

  “It’s fine,” Kyle said. “So you didn’t loan your car while you were away?”

  McCann shook his head.

  “Is there anyone you can think of who might have been able to access your car without permission?”

  Another headshake. “We’ve tried to leave those friends behind.”

  “You didn’t notice anything different about your car when you got back? No mess. No smells? Nothing out of the ordinary?”

  McCann shook his head. “I keep it clean. It was just as I left it. You know, these are pretty strange questions, Detective. May I ask why you have all these questions about my car?”

  Cops were not in the habit of answering questions but Burgess figured that McCann deserved an explanation, and anyway, he wanted to gauge McCann’s reaction to the story. “On the Fourth, a man identifying himself as Cary McCann contacted the police and reported finding a body in Stroudwater Park. He was driving a blue Prius, and the plates, when we ran them, came back to a blue Prius registered to you.”

  McCann pulled off his glasses, got a cloth handkerchief from his pocket, and cleaned them thoughtfully. A classic stalling technique. “Seriously? Someone was driving my car and using my name? How do you explain that?”

  “We can’t,” Kyle said. “That’s why we were asking about someone who might have borrowed it.”

  “Maybe your computer made a mistake.”

  “It doesn’t make that kind of mistakes,” Kyle said. “If it wasn’t one of your friends, could it have been a friend of your wife’s?”

  “Annie knows how I feel about people borrowing my car. She would never do that.”

  The man was either so ridiculously certain that he wasn’t willing to entertain the possibility that someone had used his car without permission. Or the man knew exactly who had borrowed his car and was hiding behind a wall of outrage and obfuscation. Like they’d never seen that before.

  But since their questions had gotten his back up, Burgess figured he’d move on.

  “You mentioned your wallet was stolen. When and where was it taken?”

  McCann cast a quick glance at the reception desk, then slid up the sleeve of a pristine white polo shirt, revealing a tattoo on his upper arm. A flowery, sinuous mermaid. They’d seen a similar one on a dead girl’s arm. “They’re pretty strict about tattoos around here,” he said. “They want a professional look, even though I’m in IT and never meet with customers. So I always keep this covered at work. It was while I was getting this. I’d hung up my jacket with my wallet in the pocket and when I put it back on, the wallet was gone. Of course, you know those places. The people who run them and the people who hang around. No one had seen anything.”

  Burgess graciously decided not to point out that McCann had been one of those people. Everyone had their snobbish moments and their blind spots. His mother had been quick to point out that “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” meant few people could throw stones.

  “Where was this?” Burgess asked, though he was sure he knew the answer.

  “Sweety’s.”

  “And you filed a police report?”

  “Of course. I was pissed. Bad enough that it hurt like hell and the artist I wanted passed me along to his apprentice. Or assistant. Or whatever she was called.”

  “You remember her name?”

  “Kit. She said it was short for kitten. Seemed like maybe she was flirting with me. When I’m wearing a wedding ring. But I guess that type doesn’t take things like marriage vows seriously.”

  “And when was this?”

  McCann shrugged. “January or February. I can’t remember exactly.” He checked his watch. “I should have known you weren’t here to ask about my wallet, not after all this time.”

  They were losing him, Burgess thought. He had more questions, but didn’t think he was going to get answers. McCann’s affable geniality was fading fast. He wondered why. He said, “Does your wife also have tattoos?”

  “She’s a school teacher, so no. It w
ould set a bad example for the kids. She didn’t even like that I got one, but I told her we couldn’t always be so straight arrow.” He patted his arm. “This is my small rebellion.”

  “A teacher? That’s great,” Kyle said. “What grade does she teach?”

  “High school. Freshman math. She’s appalled at how badly prepared the kids are when they get to her.”

  They needed to track down the wife, Burgess thought. Maybe she had lent the car? And hadn’t one of the girls reported overhearing something about a teacher? He did not want this plot to thicken, the net they had to spread to get wider, but they would cast it as far as necessary. He looked at Kyle, passing the conversational ball. McCann didn’t yet seem irritated with Kyle.

  “What school?” Kyle said. “My daughter’s going to be a freshman this fall. Maybe she’ll get lucky and have your wife for a math teacher. She loves math.”

  McCann named a school without much enthusiasm, then checked his watch again. “Sorry,” he said. “As I mentioned, I’m in the middle of a big project. I really don’t have any more time for…you. This. Talking. But I’d love to hear from you if you figure out who’s been using my name. And, I guess, my license plates. Or my car. That is disturbing.”

  You’re disturbing, Burgess thought. Very disturbing. McCann hadn’t even blinked when hearing that his car was linked to the discovery of a crime victim’s body and seemed only mildly upset that his license plates, and his name, had been used by someone he claimed not to know, and used in connection with a crime. He glanced at Kyle and got a faint nod.

  “We won’t keep you, then,” he said, taking out a card and sliding it across the table. “But please do call us if you think of anything that might help us locate the person who is using your name. That's a very upsetting idea, I am sure.”

  He and Kyle rose and headed for the door, taking their bottles of water with them.

  In the truck, Kyle tucked the bottle he was carrying into an evidence bag and labeled it.