The Night Gardener

by George Pelecanos

  “I been informed that I’m not on today’s menu. What about the arraignment?”

  “I’ll come back for it,” said Ramone. “C’mon, I’ll bend your ear on the way out.”

  MARITA BRYANT SAW THE squad and plainclothes cars arrive at the Johnson family house across the street from the vantage point of her home in Manor Park. She watched as the large bald-headed detective entered the house, and she kept watching as Terrance Johnson pulled up in his Cadillac, parked it sloppily, and ran to his front door. An ambulance arrived shortly thereafter. Helena Johnson, Terrance’s wife and the mother of their children, Asa, fourteen, and Deanna, eleven, was carried from the house on a stretcher and taken away. Terrance came out with her, visibly distraught, staggering as he walked across his lawn. He stopped and spoke to his next-door neighbor, a retiree named Colin Tohey, and was then pulled along by the detective, who helped him into the plainclothes car. The two of them drove off.

  Marita Bryant left her house for the Johnson yard, where Colin Tohey still stood, somewhat shaken. Tohey told Bryant that the dead body of Asa Johnson had been found in that big community garden off Blair Road. Helena had collapsed upon hearing the news, necessitating the ambulance. Bryant, who had a daughter the same age as Asa and was familiar with Asa’s crowd, immediately called Regina Ramone. She knew that Diego was friends with Asa, and thought Regina would want to be informed. Also, she was curious, as Gus would surely have some further information regarding the death. Regina had not yet heard the news and said that she did not think Gus had, either, otherwise he would have phoned. She ended the call while Marita Bryant was still talking and immediately tried to locate Gus.

  “YOUR SON WAS TIGHT with this boy?” said Rhonda Willis, riding shotgun in the stripped-down, four-banger Impala, the most basic model Chevrolet produced. She and Ramone were going up North Capitol Street.

  “Diego has a lot of friends,” said Ramone. “Asa wasn’t his main boy, but he was someone Diego knew fairly well. They played football on the same team last year.”

  “He gonna take it hard?”

  “I don’t know. When my father died, he felt it because he saw the grief hit me. But this kind of thing is wrong in a different way. It’s just unnatural.”

  “Who’s going to tell him?”

  “Regina will pick him up at school and give him the news. I’ll call him later. Then I’ll see him tonight.”

  “Y’all talk about the Lord much in your house?” said Rhonda.

  “Not too much,” said Ramone.

  “This one of those times you should.”

  Rhonda’s adult life had been challenging, what with having to raise four boys on her own. The God thing definitely worked for her. It was her rock and it was her crutch, and she liked to talk about it. Ramone did not.

  “What’s in your gut?” said Rhonda, cutting the silence in the car.

  “Nothing,” said Ramone.

  “You knew this boy. You know his family.”

  “His father and mother are straight. They kept a close watch on him.”

  “Anything else?”

  “His father’s kind of an unyielding guy. Athletics, the classroom, everything… He rode his son pretty hard.”

  “Hard enough to push the kid someplace bad?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “ ’Cause that can do as much damage as not bein there at all.”

  “Right.”

  “You ever have any kind of indication or feeling that the boy was into something wrong?”

  “No. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t. But I got no reason to think he was.”

  Rhonda looked across the bench. “Did you like him?”

  “He was a good kid. He was fine.”

  “I’m sayin, how did you feel about him? You know, how a man looks at a boy and sizes him up?”

  Ramone thought of the times he’d seen Asa on the football field, making half-assed tackles, sometimes moving away from the man running with the ball. He thought of Asa entering Ramone’s house, not addressing him or Regina directly, not greeting them at all unless he had to. He knew exactly what Rhonda was going for. Sometimes you’d look at a boy and see him as a man, and you’d think, He’s going to be a tough one, or a strong one, or he’s going to be successful in anything he does. Sometimes you’d look at a young man and think, I’d be proud if he were my son. Asa Johnson was not one of those boys.

  “He lacked heart,” said Ramone. “That’s about the only thing that comes to mind.”

  There was something else Ramone had felt sometimes, catching a kind of weakness in Asa’s eyes. Like he could be got or took.

  “Least I got an honest opinion out of you.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything,” said Ramone, mildly ashamed.

  “It’s more than Garloo’s gonna see. ’Cause you know he’ll look at that boy and think what he’s gonna think, automatic. And I’m not even sayin that Bill’s like that. He’s just… The man’s got a dull mind. He likes to take those mental shortcuts.”

  “I just need to get up there and get a look at things.”

  “If we ever get there.”

  “They give all the real vehicles to the regular police,” said Ramone.

  “We do get the bitch cars,” said Rhonda.

  Ramone punched the gas, but it only made the engine knock.

  THE CROWD AT THE crime scene had thinned of spectators and grown with officials and one print reporter by the time Ramone and Rhonda Willis arrived. They found Wilkins and Loomis standing alongside a nondescript Chevy. Nearby, a white uniformed officer leaned against a squad car. Wilkins had a notebook in one hand and a burning cigarette in the other.

  “The Ramone,” said Wilkins. “Rhonda.”

  “Bill,” said Ramone.

  Ramone scanned the geography: the commercial structures, the railroad tracks, and the backs of the homes and the church on the residential street running east-west on a rise at the far edge of the garden.

  “Got a call from the office that you were coming out,” said Wilkins. “You knew the decedent?”

  “Friend of my son’s,” said Ramone.

  “Asa Johnson?”

  “If it’s him.”

  “He was wearing one of those middle school photo IDs on a chain around his neck. His father identified the body.”

  “Is the father here?”

  “Hospital. His wife lost it completely. The father’s there with her now. He wasn’t looking so good himself.”

  “Anything yet?” said Ramone.

  “Kid was shot in the temple, exit wound at the crown. We found the slug. Flattened, but we’ll get a caliber on it.”

  “No gun.”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Casings?”

  “No.”

  “What’re you feeling?”

  “Nothin, yet.”

  Ramone knew, as did Rhonda and Loomis, that Wilkins had already formed a likely scenario and eliminated some of the other possibilities. The first assumption that Wilkins had made, seeing a black teenager with a fatal gunshot wound, was “drug thing.” A murder involving business, what some D.C. cops openly called “society cleanses.” Darwinism put in motion by those in the life.

  Wilkins’s thoughts would then have gone to murder in the commission of an armed robbery. Except what would a kid this age have, in this middle-income part of town at best, that could be of any real value? The North Face coat, the one-hundred-dollar sneaks… but these were still on him. So this scenario was doubtful. He could have been robbed for a roll of money or his stash. But that would have brought it back to a drug thing.

  Maybe, Wilkins imagined, the victim had been hitting some other yo’s girlfriend. Or looked at her like he wanted to.

  Or it could have been a suicide. But black kids didn’t do themselves, thought Wilkins, so that was not likely. Plus, no gun. The kid couldn’t have punched his own time card, then disposed of the gun after he was dead.

  “What do you think, Gus?” said Wilkins. “Was this kid
in the life?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” said Ramone.

  Bill Wilkins had acquired the nickname “Garloo” because of his massive size, pointed ears, and bald dome. Garloo was the name of a toy monster popular with boys in the early to mid-’60s, and Wilkins had received the tag from one of the few veterans old enough to recall the loinclothed creature from his youth. It suited Wilkins. He breathed through his mouth. His posture was hulking, his walk heavy. He appeared to those who first met him to be half man and half beast. The FOP bar kept a construction paper medallion, strung with yarn, with the name “Garloo” crudely crayoned across its face, which Wilkins wore around his neck when he was drunk. In the evenings, he could often be found at the FOP bar.

  Wilkins had six years to go on his twenty-five and, having lost the desire or expectation for promotion, was left with only the diluted ambition to hold on to his rank and position at VCB. To do so, he would need to maintain a reasonable closure rate. To him, difficult cases were curses, not challenges.

  Ramone liked Wilkins well enough. Other homicide police went to him frequently with questions regarding their PCs, as Wilkins had outstanding computer literacy, facility, and knowledge, and was always ready to help. He was honest and a fairly decent guy. A little cynical, but in that he was not alone. As far as his investigative skills went, he had, as Rhonda said, a dull mind.

  “Any witnesses?” said Ramone.

  “None yet,” said Wilkins.

  “Who called it in?”

  “Anonymous,” said Wilkins. “There’s a tape.…”

  Ramone looked over at the uniformed police officer leaning against his 4D squad car within earshot of their conversation. He was on the tall side, lean, and blond. On the front quarter panel of his Ford were the car numbers, which Ramone idly read, a habit from his own days on patrol.

  “We’re fixing to canvass,” said Wilkins, drawing Ramone’s attention back to the scene.

  “That’s McDonald Place up there, isn’t it?” said Ramone, nodding to the residential street on the edge of the garden.

  “We’ll be knocking on those doors first,” said Wilkins.

  “And that church.”

  “Saint Paul’s Baptist,” said Rhonda.

  “We’ll get it,” said Loomis.

  “They got night workers in the animal shelter, right?” said Ramone.

  “We do have some ground to cover,” said Wilkins.

  “We can help,” said Ramone, easing into it.

  “Welcome to the party,” said Wilkins.

  “I’m gonna get a look at the body,” said Ramone, “you don’t mind.”

  Ramone and Rhonda Willis began to walk away. As they passed the nearby squad car, the uniformed officer pushed off it and spoke.

  “Detectives?”

  “What is it?” said Ramone, turning to the face the patrolman.

  “I was just wondering if any witnesses have come forward.”

  “None as of yet,” said Rhonda.

  Ramone read the nameplate pinned on the uniformed officer’s chest, then looked into his blue eyes. “You got a function here?”

  “I’m on the scene to assist.”

  “Then do it. Keep the spectators and any media away from the body, hear?”

  “Yessir.”

  As they walked into the garden, Rhonda said, “A little short and to the point, weren’t you, Gus?”

  “The details of this investigation are none of his business. When I was in uniform, I never would have thought to have been so bold like that. When you were around a superior, you kept your mouth shut, unless you got asked to speak.”

  “Maybe he’s just ambitious.”

  “Another thing I never thought of. Ambition.”

  “But they went ahead and promoted you anyway.”

  The body was not far in, lying in a plot off a narrow path. They stopped well short of the corpse, mindful of altering the crime scene with their presence. A technician from the Mobile Crime Lab, Karen Krissoff, worked around Asa Johnson.

  “Karen,” said Ramone.

  “Gus.”

  “Get your impressions yet?” said Ramone, meaning any footprints that could be found in the soft earth.

  “You can come in,” said Krissoff.

  Ramone came forward, got down on his haunches, and eyeballed the body. He was not sickened, looking at the corpse of his son’s friend. He had seen too much death for physical remains to affect him that way, and had come to feel that a body was nothing but a shell. He was merely sad, and somewhat frustrated, knowing that this thing could not be undone.

  When Ramone was finished looking at Asa and the immediate area around him, he got up on his feet and heard himself grunt.

  “Powder burns prevalent,” said Rhonda, stating what she had observed from seven feet away. “It got done close in.”

  “Right,” said Ramone.

  “Kinda warm out to be wearing that North Face, too,” said Rhonda.

  Ramone heard her but did not comment. He was looking out to the road, past the spectators and the uniforms and the techs. A black Lincoln Town Car was parked on Oglethorpe, and a man in a black suit leaned against the passenger door of the car. The man was tall, blond, and thin. He locked eyes with Ramone for a moment, then pushed himself off the vehicle, walked around to the driver’s side, and got under the wheel. He executed a three-point turn and drove away.

  “Gus?” said Rhonda.

  “Coat musta been fresh,” said Ramone. “I’m assuming he got it recently and was showing it off. Couldn’t wait to wear it.”

  Rhonda Willis nodded. “That’s how kids do.”

  TWELVE

  CONRAD GASKINS CAME out of a clinic located beside a church off Minnesota Avenue and Naylor Road, in Randle Highlands, Southeast. He wore a T-shirt darkened with sweat stains and faded green Dickies work pants. He had been up since 5:00 a.m., when he had risen and walked over to the shape-up spot on Central Avenue in Seat Pleasant, Maryland. He was picked up there every morning by an ex-offender, one of those Christians who saw it as their duty to hire men like they themselves had once been. The shape-up spot was near the rental he shared with Romeo Brock, a shabby two-bedroom house in a stand of woods up off Hill Road.

  Brock was waiting on him in the SS, idling in the lot of the clinic. Gaskins dropped into the passenger seat.

  “You piss in that cup?” said Brock.

  “My PO makes sure I do,” said Gaskins. “She said I gotta drop a urine every week.”

  “You can buy clean pee.”

  “I know it. But at this clinic, they damn near search your ass before you go into the bathroom. Ain’t nobody gettin away with that bullshit. Why my PO sends me here.”

  “You be dropping negatives, anyway.”

  “True. I ain’t even fuck with no weed since I been uptown.”

  Gaskins felt good about it, too. He even liked the way his back ached at the end of an honest day’s work. Like his back was reminding him he did something straight.

  “Let’s get your ass cleaned up,” said Brock. “I can’t take your stink.”

  They drove into Prince George’s, crossing Southern Avenue, the border between the city and the county, where the dirt was done. Those on the outlaw side knew you could move back and forth across that border and rarely get caught, as neither police force had cross-jurisdiction. They had tried to enlist the aid of U.S. Marshals and ATF officers but as of yet had been unable to coordinate the various forces and agencies. Between the gentrification of the city, which had displaced many low-income residents to P.G., and the disorganization of local law enforcement, the neighborhoods around the county line had become a criminal’s paradise, the new badlands of the metropolitan area.

  “You all right?” said Brock.

  “I’m tired, is all it is.”

  “That all? You just tired? Or are you pressed about somethin? ’Cause you know I got everything fixed airtight.”

  “Said I was tired.”

  “You just mad ’
cause you still on paper. You got to pee in a little old plastic cup, and here I am, free.”

  “Hmph,” said Gaskins.

  His young cousin was all bravado and had not yet seen the other side of the hill. Gaskins had been on both slopes. He had been involved in the drug trade at an early age. He had been an enforcer. He had fallen on agg assault and gun charges, and had done time in Lorton, and when they’d closed Lorton they moved him out of state. There was nothing about any of it that he wanted to visit again. But he had promised his aunt, Romeo Brock’s mother, that he would stay by her son and see that he came to no harm.

  So far he had made good on that promise. Mina Brock had raised Gaskins after his own mother died when he was a child. You couldn’t go back on a blood oath made to a woman as purely good as his aunt. She was probably on her knees right now, scrubbing the urine from some hotel bathroom floor or cleaning the jam off someone’s sheets. She had fed and clothed Gaskins, and tried to slap some sense into him when she had to. She was plain good. Least he could do was look after her natural child.

  But Romeo wasn’t right. He was inching toward that line and was close to crossing it, and though Gaskins would have liked nothing better than to bail out on him, he felt he was trapped. It sickened him to know where Romeo was taking him, and still he had to stay.

  They were driving toward a cliff. The doors were locked and the car had no brakes.

  GASKINS SHOWERED AND CHANGED in the single bathroom of their house, a one-story structure fronted by a porch, set back on a gravel drive and nearly hidden among old-growth maple, oak, and one tall pine. A large tulip poplar grew alongside the house. Branches from that tree had fallen and lay on the roof. The home was in need of repair, replumbing, and rewiring, but the owner never visited the property. The rent was small, in line with the physical condition of the house, and Brock always paid on time. He didn’t want the landlord or anyone else coming around.

  Gaskins pulled a hooded sweatshirt over his head and checked himself in the mirror. The landscape work was keeping him in shape. He had thrown weights in prison regular, so it wasn’t like he’d ever fallen off. Compact and with thick, muscular thighs, he had been a pretty fair back in his youth, a low-to-the-ground Don Nottingham type, hard to grab, hard to bring down. He had played Pop Warner in the city but drifted away from it when he got involved with some corner boys in the Trinidad neighborhood, where he’d come up. Coach had tried to keep him in it, but Gaskins was too smart for that. There was money to be made, and all the things that went with it. And he’d gotten those things, too. For a short while. He could have been a fair halfback, though, if he’d stayed past the tenth grade at Phelps. But he had been too smart.