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

by Flora, Kate;

  Dylan hadn’t been a cop’s kid for most of his growing up years, but he’d settled into it like a natural. “Good thought,” Burgess agreed. “That’s on the agenda for tomorrow morning. Harder to do, though, because it’s summer and most of the staff aren’t around. Speaking of summer, how’s your job going?”

  “Bratty little kids who make Neddy look like an angel. Teenage boys trying to get girls to notice them. Girls doing the same.” There was a hesitation, then his son said, “Girls always notice lifeguards. And this weird thing—moms of the little kids trying to get the life guard to notice them.”

  It didn’t hurt that his son was tall, strong, athletic and very good looking. In a bathing suit and tee shirt, he was definitely eye candy. Burgess puzzled over the fact that they looked so much alike, yet he was a scarred old bear with a scary face and his son was a babe magnet. Looking at this version of his younger self made him feel very old.

  “Dad?” Dylan said. “What am I supposed to do when a friend needs help and helping might involve doing something that could get me in trouble?”

  “You could talk to your dad?”

  “I am talking to my dad.”

  “About the specifics, I mean. It’s hard when the person is a friend, but when someone asks you to do something illegal, or break the rules, you have to say no. Or ask for a grownup’s help.”

  It was the right advice, and what he was supposed to say. But Burgess knew that loyalty to peers could skew a teenager’s judgment. Even one as balanced as Dylan. “You want to tell me about it?” he said.

  “Maybe later. Maybe it won’t come to anything anyway,” Dylan said.

  Burgess didn’t press him. Theirs was a cautious relationship. Slowly developing. He didn’t like to push too hard. He could only hope that, having opened the door to a future conversation, Dylan would come to him before doing something impulsive or dangerous.

  Their half hour flew past. It seemed like only minutes before Burgess was dropping Dylan at home and heading back in to work. Tonight, late or not, he was going to pay a call on Ida Mae Wilson.

  Not far from the longest day of the year, there was still light as he drove to headquarters. It was summer in the city for sure. Swarms of girls in cutoffs and tank tops and guys who had to hold up their pants or shorts were on the sidewalks. Happy. Noisy. This early in the evening still relatively sober and not doing stupid things like wandering into traffic. Their music was different, but all summer nights seemed to have a driving beat. He could easily have just stayed in the truck, driving around with the window down, letting summer in. But people were waiting.

  Kyle and Perry and Prentiss were there waiting for him. Ragging on each other, floating ideas. Waiting for him to bring some order to the investigation and tell them where to go next. There was a stack of folders on the table, courtesy of Rocky Jordan. A whiteboard waited.

  “Okay, what have we got?” he said.

  It was more of the same stuff they’d gotten from the neighbors near Ida Mae Wilson’s house. People had seen the man in the black car. Had run-ins with the man in the black car. Described the man in the black car the same way Wilson’s neighbors had. Belligerent. Disagreeable. Same physical description.

  “We have a bolo out on that car, right?” Burgess said. He told them about Nancy Delude and the license plates. About the man who bought the car being a friend of her late husband’s cousin. That her late husband’s cousin had been Charlie Dornan. No name, and the car and plate were dead ends unless Ida Mae Wilson knew something.

  “I feel like we’re chasing our tails here. Everything we learn about this guy confirms what we already know, and nothing brings us any closer.”

  The whiteboard still waited.

  “Is Vince going to liaise with the feds about whoever applied for custody of our girls?” Kyle asked.

  “He’s supposed to. He’ll need the information we got from the translator today. The names of the women who claimed to be their relatives. The names of the girls. Tentative dates that they arrived here in Maine. Can you write that up, Ter?”

  “Sure,” Kyle said. “So that Captain Cote can share it all with the press. Then, in six months to a year, we’ll get an answer back from the feds, unless the information has been lost or they can’t locate it. These are helpless children and they literally gave them to sex traffickers. In my nearly twenty years, I have yet to see the feds man up and accept responsibility for anything. Why should this time be different?”

  “You got a better idea about how we find the women who claimed to be relatives?” Perry asked.

  Everyone was in a bad mood. It happened when the cases asked too much and the answers came too slowly. And nothing was helped when the weather got hot and stagnant and no one could sleep even if they had time to sleep.

  “We could at least run their names. See if the girls can give us anything that might help us locate them,” Kyle said.

  “Anyone had a chance to check out who bought that saw yet?” Burgess asked.

  He felt like he was losing it. He was supposed to be on top of things. Directing the investigation. Making sure questions got answered. Yet it seemed that the only question that got answered was about the mystery man in the black car. And the answer was always the same. A description but no name. No phone number. No address. And now the black car seemed to have disappeared.

  “Wink and Dani have gone home,” Prentiss said. “They were both toast. Rocky expects to get call lists from the three phones found at the scene last night and this morning some time tomorrow.”

  Burgess made a note. There had been a time when he could carry all this in his head. Unfair as it was, that was back before he also carried Chris, Dylan, Nina, and Neddy in his head. Maybe his head was too small for work and family. Maybe it was okay to use his notebook to help out. Maybe he was blaming family for what was really the product of getting older. Most cops his age were retired. Well, maybe that was many, not most.

  He and Kyle filled everyone in on the visit to Dr. Morton. On their strange interview with the real Cary McCann.

  “So who was using McCann’s car?” Perry asked.

  “And was the guy who said he was McCann the same man everyone is describing who scared the girls and drives the black town car?” Kyle said. “Do we have anything with his prints on it? And when are we going to interview McCann’s wife? Did Rocky get a chance to look into her yet?”

  The questions piled up, with everyone looking at Burgess for answers he didn’t have.

  He knew the way cases like this got solved. Shoulder to the wheel, and just keep pushing. Pile up the answers until they had enough. Wink and Dani and Rudy would be working on evidence. His team had to keep asking questions.

  “Sage, you follow up on that saw, see if they have a name and a credit card for us yet. See if they have anything. Stan, you’ve got the real Cary McCann’s wife.” He gave Perry the folder on Annie McCann that Rocky had left on his desk. “Then you and Sage can hit the schools, see if the description of our mystery man rings any bells. That missing fingertip is pretty distinctive. Kyle and I will attend the autopsies. Then we’ll all check in. Sound like a plan?”

  There was a murmur of agreement.

  “Before we call it a night,” Kyle said, “let’s take another look at the fake McCann’s interview. I’d think if he was missing part of a digit I would have noticed, but just to be sure. Be pretty ironic if we’d had the guy here and let him go.”

  “And print a picture we can show to the girls,” Perry said.

  “And the neighbors,” Prentiss said.

  “And the real McCann,” Burgess said.

  Kyle found the video and queued it up, and they waited, expectantly, for a look at the man’s left hand.

  When they were done, Stan Perry spoke for all of them when he said, “Holy fuck! He kept that finger hidden the whole freaking time. Who does that? Doesn’t this have to be our guy?”

  In your face bad guys really push cops’ buttons. But they still didn’
t know if their buttons were being pushed.

  Kyle grabbed a good screenshot of the fake Cary McCann and made everyone copies. Then, because they’d put things in place for tomorrow and his team hadn’t played Sleeping Beauty, lingering in bed like he had, Burgess sent them home. He signaled for Kyle to stay behind. “I’m going to pay Ida Mae Wilson a visit. Want to join me?”

  “Want to, but can’t. I promised Michelle and the girls that we’d watch a movie when I got home. So unless there’s an emergency…”

  Burgess thought this whole freaking thing was an emergency, but he nodded. “See you in the morning. Want to ride up together?”

  Kyle nodded, and they swam through the body temperature air to their vehicles. At Burgess’s place, there had been a breeze. Here in the heart of the city, the still air felt thick enough to wring out.

  Burgess paused before getting in the truck, listening to the city. Listening to his gut, which told him that a bad night lay ahead. He wished he could interrogate it. Make it tell what else was coming at them. But it was a feeling. A premonition of evil. That was all his gut would say.

  He gave up and headed west to find Ida Mae Wilson.

  Thirty-Seven

  There was heat lightning in the distance, dancing from cloud to cloud, while thunder rumbled far away. There would probably be rain before midnight. A nice cooling rain would be good. He just hoped that the warning from his gut didn’t mean they’d all be out in the rain, looking for something or someone. Searches in the rain were the worst. No visibility. Sounds distorted. Impossible to keep track of people, which put everyone at risk.

  Don’t get ahead of yourself, the voice in his head reminded him. He was just on his way to interview an elderly lady. He put on the radio, found an oldies station, and tried to calm down.

  He found Pine Tassel Estates by an elegant, well-illuminated sign and turned in between two massive stone pillars. The road wound up a hill, past a pond and some gardens, leading him at last to a brightly lit building that looked like the massive old summer houses wealthy people built all along the coast a hundred years ago. It had a wide pillared porch housing clusters of white wicker chairs, and big window boxes full of geraniums and dusty miller. He parked in a spot marked Visitors and climbed the steps. The double door was open, and through the screens he could hear the sounds of music and lively voices. He let himself in and went to the desk facing the door, where a neat young woman in a blue blazer and white blouse sat.

  “Good evening,” he said. “Detective Sergeant Joe Burgess. I’m looking for Ida Mae Wilson.”

  Instead of the greeting her pleasant face suggested, she only reached for his credentials and studied them like he was probably a fraud who just wanted to crash the party. At last she handed them back and said, “I believe she’s gone back to her apartment. I’ll have security take you there.”

  She had an accent. Middle European, maybe.

  “That would be very kind,” he said.

  He waited. She watched him with an expression that suggested she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure that she should. Finally she leaned toward him and said, confidentially, “She was a bit tipsy when she left. You should maybe keep this in mind?”

  She said it like a question, and Burgess agreed he would keep it in mind. After a wait so long his knee began to complain, a burly man, also in a navy blazer, approached and held out his hand. “Douglas Ryder,” he said. “I’ll take you to Ida Mae.”

  Burgess shook the offered hand, noting that the man had not referred to her as Mrs. Wilson.

  He followed Ryder to the back of the building, out a door, and along a path leading to a cluster of neat cottages. “She’s in number ten,” the man said. “It’s this way.”

  They climbed a set of stairs onto a porch that was a mini-clone of the one on the main building, and Ryder knocked on the door. The door was open but the screen door was closed. “It’s Doug Ryder, Mrs. Wilson,” his escort called. “You have a visitor.”

  It’s always interesting, in a case where multiple witnesses have referred to a particular person, to finally meet that person. He’d avoided forming an image of her, though he had to step on a prejudice against someone who would loan their house to a person like Charlie Dornan. But he’d seen plenty of people over the years who showed poor judgement in how they indulged their relatives. And he didn’t actually know that Dornan had been using the house with her permission.

  The woman who answered the door, after a slow progress of footsteps accompanied by the thump of a cane, was old and wrinkled and fighting it tooth and nail. Her hair was the color of rust, with a quarter inch of white roots. She wore a bright slash of red lipstick that didn’t quite follow the contours of her mouth, and her nails were a garish pink that didn’t match the lipstick. Neither lips nor nails matched her pearl pink twinset. Of course he disapproved, being such a fashionable guy himself.

  “Ida Mae, this is Detective Burgess,” Ryder said. “He’d like to ask you some questions.”

  “It is very late for a visit,” she said. “I was just about to have my nightcap.” She looked at Burgess. “Would you like to join me?”

  His standard response was that he couldn’t, he was working, but he sensed that he’d have better luck getting her to talk if he said yes, so he said, “What are we drinking, Mrs. Wilson?” as he stepped inside.

  Ryder sketched a wave and disappeared, and Burgess followed her into a cozy living room.

  “We’re having Scotch,” she said. “At least, I am. And since it’s all I have in the house right now, I guess that’s what you’re having, too.” She waved her cane at a tray on the coffee table. Two glasses. Some ice. And the Scotch.

  “Were you expecting someone?” he asked.

  “My nephew, but he’s a very unreliable fellow. So now I guess I’m expecting you.”

  She poured two generous drinks, dropped in some ice cubes, and passed one glass to him. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” she said.

  “We’ve been trying to track down the owner of a black town car that’s been seen near the scene…uh…that may be involved in some illegal activities. Earlier today, I spoke with a woman named Nancy Delude. The car previously belonged to her husband John. She said that she sold the car to a friend of your nephew Charlie, and that you might know the man’s name.”

  He knew what would she say—why don’t you ask Charlie. Before she could, he took a sip of his drink and smiled. “This is very good Scotch.”

  She smiled, too. “When you get old, you start to wonder what you’re saving it for. I’ve decided I was saving it for things that I enjoy.”

  “It’s a good philosophy.” He dug out his notebook, although he didn’t really need it, and pretended to consult his notes. “Nancy says that the man who bought John’s car took you for a ride in it. Is that right?”

  She took another drink. Hers was disappearing fast. Doing the things that she enjoyed.

  “It was one of those big black town cars, like important people get driven around in. John was foolishly in love with it. He won it at poker. Did Nancy tell you that?”

  “She did.”

  “Nancy is my kind of girl. She knows how to have fun.”

  “About the car?” he prompted.

  “Yes. I went for a ride in it. Charlie took me out to dinner at a nice restaurant, and his friend drove us and played chauffeur. It was fun. I got to wear real high heels, which, at my age, is a rare thing indeed.”

  “Do you know the man’s name?”

  “He introduced himself as Lawrence. Charlie called him Larry, but I could tell he didn’t like that much. He made a good chauffeur. He was kind of a pompous man.”

  “You know his last name?”

  She shook her head. “All I heard was Larry. Lawrence, actually. He seemed more like a Lawrence. The kind of man who’d be a bit precious about his name, so of course I called him Larry. He was a good driver, Detective. The only thing that wasn’t quite right was his shirt and tie. They were
ridiculous.”

  Inch by inch. They now had the possibility of a school connection. And a first name. If this were TV, he’d have it solved in the next five minutes. He’d type “school” and “Lawrence” and “colorful shirts” into a computer and the name, address, DOB, a high quality photo and other useful information would pop up on the screen.

  “Charlie will know his last name, I’m sure. You should ask him.”

  Burgess got out the screen shot of the man who’d called himself Cary McCann. “Have you ever seen this man before?”

  “Of course. I just told you about him. That’s Lawrence. Charlie’s friend. The man with the black town car.”

  Burgess changed the subject. “Can I confirm that Charlie has your permission to use your Prius?”

  She studied her drink, like what he wasn’t telling her was written there on the ice cubes. “He really doesn’t, you know, but since I stopped driving, he’s just come here and taken it, and he’s kind of careless about bringing it back.” She gave him a worried look. “He hasn’t gone and had an accident in my car, has he?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  He just wanted to keep the questions flowing, to put off the moment when he’d have to tell her about Charlie. “Were you close to your nephew Charlie?” Oops. He’d used the past tense. Cops were very alert to these missteps. He wondered if she would be.

  She shrugged, then gave a kind of impish smile. Because her house, and her car, had been used by bad guys, he’d assumed he wouldn’t like her, but he was starting to like her quite a lot.

  “I think Charlie believes we’re closer than we are. Perhaps it’s unkind of me to say this, but Charlie is kind of an operator. He thinks I don’t know it, of course. He thinks I’m a dotty old lady who dotes on him.”

  “An operator? In what way?”

  “Well. There’s the car, of course. And then there’s my house. I know he was letting people stay there without asking me. I heard that from my old neighbors, that there were people coming and going. Rose Samson was quite concerned about it. In fact, she suggested he was using the place for prostitution. It’s why I told him I was selling it, and arranged for the furniture to be moved out.”