The Night Gardener

by George Pelecanos

  The Johnson house was a modest brick colonial, well maintained, on Somerset, west of Coolidge High School. Cars filled the spaces on both sides of the street. Visitors had been cautiously dropping in, bringing food and condolences to the family, leaving just as quickly as they had arrived. A formal wake and church service would come later, but relatives and close friends felt a more immediate response was necessary. No one could really know what was proper in situations such as this. A casserole or a dish of lasagna in hand was an impotent but safe bet.

  Ramone was let into the house by a woman he did not recognize after he identified himself as a family friend first and a police officer second. There were folks sitting in the living room, some with their hands in their laps, some talking quietly, some not talking at all. Asa’s little sister, Deanna, was sitting on the hall stairway with a couple of young girls, cousins, Ramone guessed. Deanna was not crying, but her eyes showed confusion.

  “Ginny,” said the woman, shaking Ramone’s hand. “Virginia. I’m Helena’s sister. Asa’s aunt.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m awful sorry.” He saw Helena in her sister, the same strong, mannish figure, the perpetually worried look, as if she carried the weight of knowing that something awful was bound to happen, that to enjoy the moment would be a waste of time. “Is Helena back from the hospital?”

  “She’s upstairs in bed, sedated. Helena wanted to be with her daughter.”

  “What about Terrance?”

  “He’s in the kitchen. My husband’s with him.” Ginny put her hand on Ramone’s forearm. “Have you people found anything yet?”

  Ramone barely shook his head. “Excuse me.”

  He went through a short hall to a small kitchen located at the rear of the house. Terrance Johnson and another man, light as Smokey Robinson, were seated at a round two-person table, drinking from cans of beer. Johnson got up to greet Ramone. Their hands clasped and they went shoulder to shoulder, Ramone patting Terrance Johnson’s back.

  “My sympathies,” said Ramone. “Asa was a fine young man.”

  “Yes,” said Johnson. “Meet Clement Harris, my brother-in-law. Clement, this is Gus Ramone.”

  Clement reached out and shook Ramone’s hand without getting up from his chair.

  “Gus’s boy and Asa were friends,” said Johnson. “Gus is a police officer. Works homicide.”

  Clement Harris mumbled something.

  “Get you a beer?” said Johnson, his eyes slightly crossed and unfocused.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m gonna have one more myself,” said Johnson. He tilted his head back and killed what was left in the can. “I ain’t tryin to get messed up, understand.”

  “It’s okay,” said Ramone. “Let’s have a beer together, Terrance.”

  Johnson tossed the empty into a garbage pail and grabbed two cans of light beer, a brand Ramone would never normally buy or drink, from the refrigerator. As the door swung closed, Ramone saw magnetized photos of the Johnson children: Deanna playing in the snow, Deanna in a gymnastics outfit, an unsmiling Asa in uniform and pads, holding a football after one of his games.

  “Let’s go outside,” said Johnson to Ramone, and when Ramone nodded, they left Clement at the kitchen table without further conversation.

  A door from the kitchen led to the narrow backyard, which stopped at an alley. Johnson was not interested in gardening or landscaping, apparently, and neither was his wife. The yard was weedy, cluttered with garbage cans and milk crates, and surrounded by a rusted chain-link fence.

  Ramone cracked his can open and drank. The beer had little more taste than water and probably as much kick. He and Johnson stopped halfway down a cracked walkway that led to the alley.

  Johnson was a bit shorter than Ramone, with a beefy build and a square head accentuated by an outdated fade, shaved back and sides with a pomaded top. Johnson’s teeth were small and pointy, miniature fangs. His arms hung like the sides of a triangle off his trunk.

  “Tell me what you know,” said Johnson, his face close to Ramone’s. The smell of alcohol was pungent on his breath, and it came to Ramone that Johnson had been drinking something other than this pisswater to get him to where he was now.

  “Nothing yet,” said Ramone.

  “Have ya’ll found the gun?”

  “Not yet.”

  “When are you going to start knowing things?”

  “It’s a process. It’s methodical, Terrance.”

  Ramone was hoping his choice of words would help placate Johnson, an analyst of some kind for the Census Bureau. Ramone generally did not know what people did, exactly, when they said that they worked for the federal government, but he knew Johnson dealt with numbers and statistics.

  “You, what, tryin to find a witness?”

  “We’re interviewing potential witnesses. We have been all day, and we’ll continue to conduct interviews. We’ll talk to his friends and acquaintances, his teachers, everyone he knew. Meantime, we’ll wait on the results of the autopsy.”

  Johnson wiped his hand across his mouth. His voice was hoarse as he spoke. “They gonna cut up my boy? Why they got to do that, Gus?”

  “It’s hard to talk about this, Terrance. I know it’s hard for you to hear it. But an autopsy will give us a lot of tools. It’s also required by law.”

  “I can’t…”

  Ramone put his hand on Johnson’s shoulder. “With that, the witness interviews, the lab work, the tip line, what have you, we’ll start to build a case. We’re going to attack this thing on all fronts, Terrance, I promise you.”

  “What can I do?” said Johnson. “What can I do right now?”

  “Next thing you have to do is come to the morgue at D.C. General tomorrow between eight and four. We need you to make the formal identification.”

  Johnson nodded absently. Ramone placed his beer can on the walk and pulled his wallet. He withdrew two cards and handed them to Johnson.

  “We offer grief counseling if you want it,” said Ramone. “Your wife’s eligible, of course, and your daughter, too. The Family Liaison Unit—their number’s on that card right there—is always available to you. The people on staff work with us in the VCB offices. Sometimes it’s difficult for the detectives to stay in touch with you, and the FLU folks can give you progress reports and answers, if any are available. The other card is mine. My work number and cell are on it.”

  “What can I do today?”

  “All these visitors here, they mean well, I know, but don’t give them the run of the house. If they have to use the bathroom, let them use the guest bathroom, not the one upstairs. And don’t let anyone except you and your wife go into Asa’s bedroom. We’re going to want to give that a thorough inspection.”

  “What you looking for?”

  Ramone made a half shrug. There was no reason to mention the possible evidence of criminal activity.

  “We don’t know until we get in there. In addition, we’re going to interview you extensively. Helena and Deanna as well, as soon as they’re ready.”

  “That Detective Wilkins, he already talked to me some.”

  “He’ll be needing to speak to you again.”

  “Why him and not you?”

  “Bill Wilkins is the primary on the case.”

  “Is he up to this?”

  “He’s good police. One of our best.”

  Terrance saw the lie in Ramone’s eyes, and Ramone looked away. He drank off some of his beer.

  “Gus.”

  “I’m sorry, Terrance. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through.”

  “Look at me, Gus.”

  Ramone met Johnson’s eyes.

  “Find who did this,” said Johnson.

  “We’ll do our best.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I’m asking you personal and plain. I want you to find the animal that did this to my son.”

  Ramone said that he would.

  They finished their beers as the sky clouded over. It began to sprinkle. They
stood in it and let it cool their faces.

  “God’s cryin,” said Terrance Johnson, his voice not much more than a whisper.

  To Ramone, it was only rain.

  FOURTEEN

  ROMEO BROCK AND Conrad Gaskins were parked at the entrance to a court, one of the tree-and-flower streets uptown off Georgia in Shepherd Park. This was not the high-end side of the neighborhood, but rather the less-fashionable section, east of the avenue. The court held a group of two-story splits and colonials with faded siding and bars on the first-floor windows and doors.

  The house of Tommy Broadus was more heavily fortified than the rest, with bars on the storm door and the upper-floor windows as well. Contact lights, positioned to activate on movement at the center of the sidewalk, were mounted high above the front door. The front yard had been paved to accommodate two cars, leaving only a small strip of grass. A black Cadillac CTS and a red Solara convertible sat side by side in the driveway.

  “His woman’s with him,” said Brock.

  “ ’Cause the convertible would be her car.”

  “A man wouldn’t drive a So-lara. ’Less he the type of man to suck on another man’s dick. That’s a girl’s idea of a sports car right there.”

  “Okay. But the Caddy must be his.” Gaskins squinted. “He got the V version, too.”

  “That ain’t no Caddy,” said Brock. “A seventy-four El-D is a Cadillac. That thing there, I don’t know what that is.”

  Gaskins almost smiled. His cousin thought the world had stopped turning in the ’70s. That’s when cats like Red Fury in D.C. and a dude name Mad Dog out of Baltimore were legends in the streets. And there were businessmen like Frank Matthews, too, in New York, a black man who beat the Italians at their own game, cut and dealt out of an armed fortress known as the Ponderosa, and owned an estate on Long Island. Romeo would have given a nut to have lived in those days and run with any of them. He dressed in tight slacks and synthetic shirts. He even smoked Kools in tribute to that time. He would have worn a natural, too, if he could. But he had a large bald spot on the top of his dome, and a blowout wouldn’t come full. So he wore his head shaved clean.

  “Tired of waitin,” said Gaskins.

  “Just got dark,” said Brock. “If the mule coming, he coming now. Like Fishhead said, those boys like to run after sundown, but not too late so they stand out.”

  “Fishhead said.”

  “Man got a stupid name, don’t mean he can’t be right.”

  A little while later, a car came down the street and slowed as it approached the court. Brock and Gaskins made themselves low as the car passed them and parked, as many other vehicles had done, head-in to the curb. It was a Mercury Sable, the sister to the Ford Taurus.

  “What I tell you?” said Brock. “Fishhead gave us gold so far.”

  Brock put his hand to the door handle.

  “What you doin?”

  “Gonna rush him and bull on in.”

  “He might be packing. Then you got nothin but a gun battle in the street.”

  “So we do what?”

  “Think, boy. If he comin out with cash, we let him come out. Brace his ass then.”

  “He still gonna have a gun if he got one now.”

  “But then he got something worth taking.”

  A young man, cleanly but not loudly dressed, got out of the Mercury and walked toward the house, talking on a cell and looking around as he went along. He did not see the men in the Impala, as their heads were barely above the windshield line and their car was parked far back at the head of the court. The security lights on the house were activated as he moved up the sidewalk. The barred storm door opened as he neared. Then the main door opened as well. The man went into the house.

  “You see it?” said Gaskins.

  “Wasn’t nobody pulling that door open.”

  “Right. He called in and it opened by itself. Automatic.”

  “I smell money,” said Brock.

  “Wait.”

  They sat there for another half hour. When the front door to the house opened again, it was not the man who had arrived in the Mercury leaving, but a woman, tall and full up top and in the back, with curls on her head. She carried a small purse in one hand and a cell in the other.

  “Uh,” said Brock.

  “We ain’t here for that.”

  “I know, but damn.”

  They watched her get into the red Solara, fire it up, and back it out of the driveway.

  “Don’t tell me to hold up, neither,” said Brock. “That girl’s gonna get us in.”

  Gaskins didn’t object. When the Solara passed them, Brock turned the key on the SS. He powered the headlights, swung the car around, and followed the woman to the intersection at 8th, staying close to her taillights. As she slowed for the stop sign there, he gave the Impala gas, swerved around her, cut in front of her abruptly, and threw the trans into park. Brock jumped out and went around the rear of the Chevy, pulling his Colt as he moved. Her window came down, and he could hear her giving him attitude already as he stepped up to the Toyota and pointed the gun at her face. Her big, pretty brown eyes went wide but only in surprise. She did not seem afraid.

  “What’s your name, baby?”

  “Chantel.”

  “Sounds French. Where you off to, Chantel?”

  “To buy cigarettes.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I got plenty.”

  “You fixin to rob me?”

  “Not you. Your man.”

  “Then let me be on my way.”

  “You ain’t goin no goddamn where but back in that house.” Brock made a motion with the barrel of the gun. “Now, get out the car.”

  “You got no reason to take that tone.”

  “Please… get out the motherfuckin car.”

  She killed the engine and stepped out of the Toyota. She handed the keys to Brock, who tossed them to Gaskins, walking their way. Gaskins held a roll of duct tape in his free hand.

  “My partner will drive it back,” said Brock. “You come with me.”

  “Look, if you gonna kill me, kill me now. I don’t want no tape around my head.”

  Brock smiled. “I got the feelin we gonna get along.”

  The woman’s eyes appraised him. “You look like a devil. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  “Once or twice,” said Brock.

  IT WAS EASY TO get into the house. Chantel Richards phoned her boyfriend, Tommy Broadus, from outside, and he let her in by pushing a button from a remote in the living room, where he sat with his mule, a young man named Edward Reese. The storm door opened and behind it the main door cracked, and Chantel, Brock, and Gaskins went inside.

  They walked into the living room, Brock and Gaskins with their guns drawn. Tommy Broadus sat in a large leather easy chair, a snifter of something amber in his hand. Edward Reese, in white Rocawear polo shirt over big jeans and Timberlands, sat in a chair just like it, on the other side of a kidney-shaped marble table. He was drinking the same shade of liquor. Neither of them moved. Gaskins frisked them quickly and found them to be clean.

  Brock told Tommy Broadus that they were there to rob him.

  “Clarence Carter can see that,” said Broadus, chains on his chest, rings on his fingers, his ass spilling over his chair. “But I ain’t got nothin of value, see?”

  Brock raised his gun. Chantel Richards stepped behind him. He fired a round into an ornate, gold leaf-framed mirror that hung over a fireplace with fake crackling logs. The mirror exploded, and shards of glass flew about the room.

  “Now you got less,” said Brock.

  They all waited for their ears to stop ringing and for the gunsmoke to settle in the room. It was a nice room, lavishly appointed, with furniture bought on Wisconsin Avenue and statues of naked white women with vases resting on their shoulders. A plasma television set, the largest Panasonic made, was set on a stand of glass and iron and blocked out most of one wall. A bookcase with leather-bound volumes on its shelves took up another. In the mid
dle of the bookcase was a cutout holding a large, lighted fish tank in which several tropical varieties swam. Above the fish tank was empty space.

  “Tape ’em up,” said Brock.

  Gaskins handed Brock his gun. Brock holstered it in his belt line, keeping the Colt trained on Broadus.

  As Gaskins worked, duct-taping the hands and feet of Broadus and Reese, Brock went to a wet bar situated near the plasma set. Broadus had several high-shelf liquors on display, including bottles of Rémy XO and Martell Cordon Bleu. On a separate platform below were bottles of Courvoisier and Hennessey.

  Brock found a glass and poured a couple inches of the Rémy.

  “That’s the XO,” said Broadus, looking perturbed for the first time.

  “Why I’m fixin to have some,” said Brock.

  “I’m sayin, you don’t know the difference, ain’t no reason for you to be drinking from a one-hundred-fifty-dollar bottle of yak.”

  “You don’t think I know the difference?”

  “Bama,” said Edward Reese with a smile. Brock locked eyes with him, but Reese’s smile did not fade.

  “Tape that boy’s mouth up, too,” said Brock.

  Gaskins did it and stepped back. Brock took a sip of the cognac and rolled it in the snifter as he let it settle sweet on his tongue.

  “That is nice,” said Brock. “You want some, brah?”

  “I’m good,” said Gaskins.

  Brock drew the Glock and handed it to Gaskins.

  “Awright, then,” said Brock. “Where your stash at, fat man?”

  “My stash?”

  “Your money only. I don’t want no dope.”

  “Told you, I got nothin.”

  “Look, you seen I got no problem using this gun. You don’t talk real quick, I’m gonna have to use it again.”

  “You can do whateva,” said Broadus. “I ain’t tellin’ y’all shit.”

  Brock had another sip of his drink. He put the snifter down and went to Chantel Richards. He touched a finger to her face and ran it slowly down her cheek. She grew warm at his touch and turned her head away.