The Night Gardener

by George Pelecanos

  The previous day, Ramone had been on the bubble when a call came in from an apartment house resident manager who had discovered a body lying in the open doorway of one of his units. Ramone caught the homicide as the primary. Rhonda Willis, as close to a partner as he ever had, would assist.

  Patrolmen and a 7D lieutenant were waiting in the street when Gus Ramone and Rhonda Willis arrived. The crime scene was in a third-floor apartment on Cedar Street, S.E., one of several boxy units that ran along both sides a short block off 14th and ended in a court.

  Several hours later, after the decedent had been sheeted and removed, Ramone and Willis remained in the living room of the apartment, saying little to each other, communicating mostly with their eyes. A couple of uniforms stood outside the door, in a stairwell smelling faintly of marijuana smoke and deep-fried food. As techs and a photographer worked diligently and quietly, Ramone stared at an eating table in an open area off the living room near a pass-through to the kitchen.

  The groceries interested him most. They were spilled on the table, coming out of a paper bag. Even the perishables, which meant the victim had just gotten in from the store and had not had time to put the milk, cheese, and chicken in the refrigerator before she had been assaulted. Stabbed near the table, he reckoned, since there were drops of blood on the tan pile carpeting there and a trail of it leading to the door. Then a whole lot of blood on the carpet at the door. That’s where she had been, probably holding onto the open door, hoping for help before she had collapsed.

  The groceries reached him on another level, too. In the mix of staples were other items she had bought at the store: Go-Gurt and Lunchables, strawberry Twizzlers, Peanut Butter Toast Crunch, and the all-important Cocoa Puffs. All right, so she wasn’t exactly a nutrition-conscious mother. She was one of those mothers who spent her dollars on things that would make her kids smile. It reminded Ramone of his wife, Regina, who never failed to bring home treats from the grocery store for their son, Diego, even though he was now in his teens, and their daughter, Alana, seven. He chided her for all her attentiveness to Diego especially, how she let him play her, how she couldn’t stay mad at him for more than a few minutes, how she always gave in to his wants and requests. Well, if the worst thing a man could say about his wife was that she loved her children too much, he was doing all right.

  The children who lived here had been picked up at school by their aunt, who had taken them to her home. Diego was still picked up almost daily at his middle school by a dutiful Regina, despite the fact that Ramone had told her she was going to make him soft.

  It was good that the kids who lived in this apartment had not seen their mother in death. She had received multiple stab wounds to the face, breasts, and neck. A severed jugular accounted for the extreme volume of blood. Defense wounds were manifested in several slashes on the victim’s fingers and a clean stab through the palm of one hand. She had voided her bowels, and her excrement had stained her white uniform brown.

  Ramone and Willis walked the apartment, careful not to disturb the techs from the Mobile Crime Lab. Though they had yet to sum up their observations to each other, both had come to similar conclusions. The victim knew the assailant, as the front door showed no signs of forced entry. Also, the knifing had occurred twenty feet inside the apartment, by the table. She had allowed the assailant to come inside. This was not a drug-related killing, not a witness murder or retaliation against a relative of someone in the game. Knifings were almost always personal and rarely involved business.

  The victim’s purse was on the kitchen table but did not contain a wallet or keys. Upon questioning, the resident manager told Ramone that the decedent, Jacqueline Taylor, drove a late-model Toyota Corolla. That car was not now parked on the street. Ramone deduced that the assailant had taken her money, credit cards, car keys, and car. From the perspective of the case, this was a good thing: if the assailant used the credit card, it could be traced. Likewise, a stolen car would make the assailant easier to find.

  The decedent was a single mother. There were some articles of clothing, underwear mostly, double-XL T-shirts and thirty-four-waist boxers, in a corner of one of her dresser drawers, indicating a frequent adult male visitor but not a permanent resident. The second bedroom held two small beds, one covered in a floral pattern and the other in printed Redskins helmets. The room was filled with dolls, action figures, stuffed animals, and athletic equipment, including a miniature basketball and a K2 football. Elementary school photographs of the children, a boy and a girl, were in the living room on a side table.

  The decedent had worked as a nurse. A uniform hung in her bedroom closet, and she was wearing a nurse’s uniform when she was found. The resident manager confirmed that she was an RN at D.C. General. She was there now, lying on a sheet of plastic in the city morgue.

  The preliminary canvass produced no witnesses. A security camera, however, was mounted on the roof of the apartment building, pointed at its entrance. If there was tape in the camera and it was rolling, Ramone would be in business. The resident manager, a skinny guy dressed completely in black, told him that the camera was “usually” working. The man had hard liquor on his breath at three in the afternoon. It was a small thing, but it gave Ramone doubt that the camera would be loaded and operable. Still, Ramone would check the camera. He could only hope.

  TO RAMONE’S SURPRISE, THE tape had been loaded and the camera was in perfect condition. A clear image of a man leaving the apartment building was produced, with a burned-in time confirming his exit roughly at the time of the assault.

  “That’s her ex-husband right there,” said the resident manager, watching the replay of the tape over the shoulder of Ramone, the image on the monitor clear as day. “He be comin around here every so often to see his kids.”

  Ramone radioed in William Tyree’s name and had it run through the computerized WACIES program. Tyree had no criminal history and no prior arrests. Not even juvenile.

  Ramone and Willis had the victim’s sister meet them at the VCB offices to view the tape. While the children stayed in a kid-friendly playroom on site, the sister sat in the video room and identified the man leaving the apartment house as William Tyree, Jacqueline Taylor’s second husband. He had been upset lately, the sister claimed, frustrated by his continued inability to find gainful employment. She suspected he had begun using drugs. Also, Jackie had taken up with a new man, a sometime construction worker named Raymond Pace, and this exacerbated Tyree’s negative state of mind. Pace had priors, had done time for a manslaughter conviction, and, the sister said, was “not good” with Jackie’s kids. Pace’s T-shirts and boxers, Ramone presumed, had been the ones in Jacqueline Taylor’s dresser drawer.

  A watch was put on Tyree’s apartment in Washington Highlands until a search warrant came through. Ramone put the Corolla’s plate numbers out on the patrol sheets, along with a description of Tyree. He then visited Raymond Pace on his job site. Pace did not seem particularly moved by the news of Taylor’s death, and indeed appeared to be as rough a customer as the sister had described. But Pace’s foreman and a couple of his coworkers alibied him completely. In any case, the videotape seemed to tell the tale. William Tyree looked right for the murder.

  By midnight, Tyree had not turned up. Ramone and Willis had been on the eight-to-four and collected much overtime that day. They went home to their families and returned the following morning at 8:00 a.m. Shortly thereafter, a patrolman made the plates of the Corolla on a Southeast street and radioed in the location.

  The Corolla was parked near Oxon Run Park, in a pocket of known drug activity, sellers and users alike. An older resident of the block walked up to Ramone and Willis, standing with uniforms who were dusting the Corolla’s door handles for prints, and asked if they were looking for the man who had parked the car. Ramone said they were.

  “He went in that apartment house right over there,” said the man, pointing a crooked finger at a brick unit set on the rise of the street. “Buncha people in and out
all the time, ain’t got no business bein there.”

  “They using heroin?” said Ramone, trying to determine the type of drug personalities he would encounter in the building.

  The resident shook his head. “The pipe.”

  Ramone, Willis, and several uniforms went into the apartment house with unsnapped holsters. They did not draw their guns. Tyree was up on a second-floor landing, standing in a gray cloud with two other smoke hounds.

  “William Tyree?” said Ramone, producing a pair of bracelets as he climbed the stairs.

  Upon seeing the police officers and hearing his name, Tyree extended his hands, touching them together at the wrist. He was cuffed without incident. In his pockets they found Jacqueline Taylor’s car keys and wallet.

  Everything had been easy, even the arrest.

  IN THE BACKROOM OFFICE of Lieutenant Maurice Roberts, a young, respected boss at the VCB, Ramone and Green sat on a couch, leaning over a phone on a plastic table. The speaker had been activated. Through it, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ira Littleton made redundant points about the arrest and interrogation. Ramone and Green had been practicing Littleton’s theories back when Littleton was watching Saturday-morning cartoons in his pajamas. Most homicide detectives had good relationships with the prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s office. It was a necessity that they interact cordially, of course, but beyond the required spirit of cooperation, genuine friendships were often forged. Littleton, young, relatively inexperienced, and insecure, was not one of the attorneys the detectives respected or considered a friend.

  “I’d prefer an explicit, full confession,” said Littleton, “rather than a simple admission that he was wearing bloody clothes yesterday.”

  “Right,” said Ramone and Green, nearly in unison.

  “We don’t have enough to hold him for the murder charge,” said Littleton.

  “We can charge him for the theft of the automobile right now,” said Ramone. “Also, possession of stolen property on the wallet and its contents. That’s enough to hold him.”

  “But I want the murder charge,” said Littleton.

  “Copy,” said Bo Green, looking at Ramone, making a stroking motion with his fist in front of his crotch. Ramone put his thumb an inch away from his forefinger, indicating the probable length of Littleton’s prick.

  “Get the confession,” said Littleton. “And swab him for DNA.”

  “Not a problem,” said Ramone.

  “Will he consent to a blood sample?”

  “He did,” said Green. “And we took it.”

  “Was he high when you arrested him?”

  “He appeared to be.”

  “That’ll show up in his blood.”

  “Right.”

  “Any marks on him, anything like that?”

  “A scratch on his face,” said Ramone. “He says he doesn’t remember how he got it.”

  “His DNA will be under her fingernails,” said Littleton. “How much you wanna bet?”

  “I’m not a gambling man,” said Ramone.

  “It’s almost a slam dunk. Let’s take it to the finish line.”

  “Well, he’s cooperated with every aspect of the investigation so far. Waived his right to an attorney as well. Only thing he hasn’t done is come right out and say he killed her. But he will.”

  “Okay. We recover that Safeway bag yet?”

  “Gene Hornsby’s on it,” said Ramone.

  “Hornsby’s a good man,” said Littleton.

  Ramone rolled his eyes.

  “God, I hope the garbagemen haven’t picked up the trash yet,” said Littleton.

  “Me, too,” said Ramone before he stuck his tongue out at the phone. Bo Green was still lazily jacking his fist.

  “We want a win, fellas,” said Littleton.

  “Yes!” said Green, idly wondering but not really caring if he was being too emphatic in his response. “Anything else?”

  “Call me when you get that confession.”

  “We will,” said Ramone, and he killed the button to the speakerphone.

  “You hear that?” said Green. “Littleton said Gene Hornsby was a good man. Said it kinda tender, like. Almost sounded like he was sweet on Gene.”

  “Gene ain’t gonna appreciate that,” said Ramone.

  “Yeah, Gene got a problem with that homosexuality thing.”

  “You sayin Littleton’s an ass ranger?”

  “I don’t know, Gus. You got a better sense of that than I do. Some might say a sixth sense.”

  “I’m tryin to work over here,” said Lieutenant Roberts, staring at the paperwork on his desk. “Y’all mind?”

  Ramone and Green got up off the couch.

  “Ready?” said Ramone.

  Green nodded. “Soon as I get my man a Mountain Dew.”

  FIVE

  TWO MEN SAT at a bar, drinking slowly from bottles. The day was warm, and the front door had been opened to cool the space and air it out. Beenie Man toasted from the house stereo, and a man and a woman danced lazily in the center of the room.

  “Say that name again?” said Conrad Gaskins.

  “Red Fury,” said Romeo Brock. He dragged off a Kool cigarette and let the smoke out slow.

  “That ain’t too common a name.”

  “Wasn’t his given name,” said Brock. “Red was what he got called in the street, you know, ’cause of his light skin. Fury was on account of the car.”

  “He drove a Mopar?”

  “His woman did. Had personalized plates with her name on ’em, said ‘Coco.’ ”

  “All right, what happened?”

  “Lotta shit. But I was thinking on this one murder he did. Red shot this dude dead in a carryout on Fourteenth Street, place called the House of Soul. Coco was waitin on him outside in the car. Red comes walkin out slow, the gun still in his hand. He gets in the passenger side real calm, and Coco pulls out the space and drives off like she just taking a Sunday cruise. Neither of them was moving too fast, is what people say. It was like nothing special had gone down.”

  “Ain’t too smart, leavin off a murder with a car got personal plates.”

  “This man didn’t care about that. Shit, he wanted folks to know who he was.”

  “Was it a Sport Fury?”

  Brock nodded. “Red over white. Seventy-one, had those hidden headlights. Auto on the tree, V-eight, four-barrel carb. Faster than a motherfucker, too.”

  “Why they not call him Red Plymouth?”

  “Red Fury sounds better,” said Brock. “Red Plymouth don’t ring out the same way.”

  Romeo Brock drank the shoulders off a cold bottle of Red Stripe. A loaded revolver sat snugly inside the belt line of his slacks under a red shirt worn tails out. An ice pick, corked at the tip, was taped to his calf.

  The business was owned by East African immigrants and located on a soon-to-be-reconstructed stretch of Florida Avenue, east of 7th, in LeDroit Park. An Ethiopian flag was painted on the sign out front, and Haile Selassie’s framed image hung beside the wall of liquor behind the stick. The bar, called Hannibal’s by the locals because that was the night tender’s name, catered to Jamaicans, mostly, which appealed to Brock. His mother, who worked as a maid in a hotel up by the District line, had been born and raised in Kingston. Brock called himself Jamaican but had never set foot on the island. He was as American as folding money and war.

  Beside Brock, on a leather-topped stool, sat Conrad Gaskins, his older cousin. Gaskins was short and powerful, with broad shoulders and muscular arms. His eyes were Asiatic and his facial bones were prominent. A scar from a razor blade, acquired in prison, ran diagonally down his left cheek. It did not ruin him with women and it gave men pause. He stank of perspiration. He had not changed out of his work clothes, which he’d been wearing all day.

  Gaskins said, “How he go down?”

  “Red?” said Brock. “He’d done so many murders, assaults, and kidnappings in three months’ time that he couldn’t even keep track of who his enemies was.”

&n
bsp; “Man was on a regular crime spree.”

  “Shit, police and the Mob was both after him in the end. You heard of the Genovese family in New York, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “They had a contract out on his black ass, is what people say. Whether he knew it or not, he killed some man was connected. I guess that’s why he left town.”

  “He was got, though,” said Gaskins.

  “Everyone gets got; you know that. It’s how you roll on the way there.”

  “Was it the police or the Corleones?”

  “FBI got him down in Tennessee. Or West Virginia, I don’t know. Caught him sleepin in one of them motor courts.”

  “They kill him?”

  “Nah. He got doomed in the federal joint. Marion, I believe. White boys murdered his ass.”

  “Aryan Brotherhood?”

  “Uh-huh. Back then they kept the whites separate from the blacks. Now, you know that some of the Marion prison guards were hooked up with those white supremacists. People say they saw the guards passin out knives to the ABs right before they cornered Red out in the yard. He held them off with a trash can lid for an hour. It took eight of those motherfuckers to kill him.”

  “That boy was fierce.”

  “You know it. Red Fury was a man.”

  Brock liked the old stories about outlaws like Red. Men who just didn’t give a good fuck about the law or if and when they’d go down. Having other men talk about you in bars and on street corners after you were dead and gone, that’s what made a life worth living. Otherwise, wasn’t anything about you that was special. ’Cause everybody, straight and criminal alike, ended up covered in dirt. For that reason alone it was important to leave a powerful name behind.

  “Finish your beer,” said Brock. “We got shit to do.”

  Out on the street, Brock and Gaskins went to Brock’s car, a ’96 black Impala SS. It was parked on Wiltberger, a block of bland row houses fronted by stoops rather than porches, a street that looked more like Baltimore than D.C. Wiltberger ran behind the storied Howard Theater, once the local stage for Motown and Stax artists and chitlin circuit comics, the south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-Line version of Harlem’s Apollo. It had been a charred shell since the time of the riots and was now surrounded by a chain-link construction fence.