The Night Gardener

by George Pelecanos

Bolton was a man with deep chocolate skin in his late thirties who wore plain-front slacks, a wrinkle-free oxford, and monk-strap loafers. The clothes did not seem to be expensive, not surprising given Bolton’s anemic salary, but there had been some thought behind the outfit. Ramone had been expecting a nerd, but instead saw a well-built man who was fastidiously dressed and cleanly shaven. His rather large, oddly shaped nose would prevent anyone from calling him handsome. His eyes were large and bright.

  “Detective Ramone?” said Bolton.

  “Mr. Bolton.” Ramone shook his hand.

  “Call me Robert.”

  “Okay. I won’t take up much of your time.”

  “I’m happy to help.”

  Ramone produced his notebook and pen. “When was the last time you saw Asa Johnson?”

  “In my classroom, the day of his death.”

  “That would have been Tuesday.”

  “Correct. And then that same day, after school.”

  “What, he had detention or something?”

  “No, nothing like that. He came in to get extra work. He was into math, Detective. He actually liked to solve problems. Asa was one of my best students.”

  “What did you give him?”

  “Just some extra-credit problems. Work sheets, things of that nature.”

  “Did you notice if he was upset in any way that afternoon?”

  “Not that I could detect.”

  “Can you… did you ever have the suspicion that he was into anything wrong?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

  “I’m not really reaching for anything in particular. I’d just like your thoughts.”

  “It’s a fallacy to believe that most of the young people in the District are into unlawful activities. You have to realize, the vast majority of these students have nothing to do with stealing cars or dealing drugs.”

  “I do realize that.”

  “They’re kids. Don’t stereotype them just because they’re African American and live in D.C.”

  African American. Years ago, Diego had told him, “Don’t ever call my friends that, ’cause they’ll just be laughing at you. We’re black, Dad.”

  Ramone gave Bolton his cop smile, which was a smile in name only. “I live in this neighborhood, sir.”

  Bolton folded his arms across his chest. “People sometimes make erroneous assumptions. That’s all I was saying.”

  Ramone wrote the words defensive and asshole on his pad.

  “Anything else you can think of that may be pertinent to the investigation?” said Ramone.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve gone over it in my head many times. To me he was a happy, well-adjusted young man.”

  “Thank you,” said Ramone. He shook Bolton’s strong hand.

  Ramone went back downstairs and found Andrea Cummings in her classroom. Ms. Cummings was young, still in her twenties, tall, leggy, and dark of skin. She was plain upon first look but straight-up pretty when she smiled. She gave Ramone a nice one when he entered the room.

  “I’m Detective Ramone. I thought I might have missed you.”

  “Lord, no. I’ve got work to do here after school. I was just up in the lounge, getting a soda.”

  Ramone dragged a chair over to her desk and had a seat.

  “Careful with that,” said Ms. Cummings. “It’s gotta be sixty years old.”

  “They should put some of this stuff in a museum and get it out the classroom.”

  “Please. We’re out of paper and pencils right now, too. I buy most of the supplies you see here with my own money. I’m telling you, someone is stealing. Whether it’s lawyers or contractors or just management, someone is lining their pockets, and it is straight theft. They’re stealing from kids. You ask me, whoever it is, they oughtta burn in hell.”

  Ramone smiled. “Say what’s on your mind.”

  “Oh, I’ve never had a problem with that.”

  “You from Chicago?”

  “You know I can’t lose that accent. I grew up in public housing, taught in my neighborhood my first couple of years out of Northwestern. The facilities were well below average, but I have never seen anything like this.”

  “I bet your students like you.”

  “Hmm. They’re starting to. My philosophy is, scare them in the beginning of the semester, give ’em that face of stone. Let them know who’s in charge straight away. They can like me later on. Or not. I want them to learn something here. That’s how they’re going to remember me.”

  “What about Asa Johnson? Did you have a good relationship with him?”

  “Asa was all right. I never had any problem with him doing his work. His behavior was fine, too.”

  “Did you like him?”

  “I cried when I heard the news. Any time a child is killed you can’t help but be moved.”

  “But did you like him?”

  Ms. Cummings relaxed in her seat. “Teachers have favorites, the way parents have favorite kids, even if few want to admit it. I can’t lie and say he was one of mine. But it wasn’t because he was bad.”

  “Did he seem happy to you?”

  “Not particularly. You could see that something was weighing on him just by looking at his posture. Plus, he rarely smiled.”

  “Any reasons you can think of?”

  “God forgive me for speculating.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “It could’ve been his home life. I met his parents. Mom was quiet and deferred to her man. The father was one of those macho dudes, trying to overcompensate. I’m just being honest. Couldn’t have been any fun for Asa to live in that house, you know what I’m saying?”

  “I appreciate your honesty,” said Ramone. “Do you have any reason to believe that he was into any kind of illegal activity?”

  “None at all. But then, you never know.”

  “Right.” Ramone looked at the blackboard. “I wouldn’t mind getting a look at that journal of his, if you have it.”

  “I don’t,” said Ms. Cummings. “They turn it in at the end of the semester, and when they do I just check to see if they’ve made an effort. I don’t read the journals, is what I’m saying. My job is to make sure they’re doing some work. They do that, they’ve accomplished something.”

  Ramone extended his hand. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Cummings.”

  “You, too, Detective,” said Ms. Cummings, reaching across the desk. “I hope I’ve been of some help.”

  Ramone left the building, went out to his Tahoe, and extracted a pair of latex gloves, stowing them in his jacket pocket. He returned to the school, revisited the administrative offices, and, accompanied by a security guard, walked to Asa’s locker. The security guard read off a piece of paper and executed the combination of the built-in lock. He stepped back as Ramone, now wearing the gloves, inspected the locker’s contents.

  A couple of textbooks sat on the top shelf. There were no papers wedged between the covers of the textbooks and no loose papers or anything else lying on the metal floor. Middle school kids typically taped photos of sports heroes, rappers, or movie stars on the inside of their locker doors. Asa had taped nothing to his.

  “You done?” said the security guard.

  “Lock it up,” said Ramone.

  He had hoped to find the boy’s journal, but it was not here.

  TWENTY-ONE

  TERRANCE JOHNSON OPENED his front door to let Ramone in. Johnson’s eyes were rimmed with red, and he reeked of hard liquor. Johnson shook Ramone’s hand and held it too long.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” said Ramone, drawing back his hand.

  “You know I’m gonna cooperate.”

  “I need you to be just as cooperative with Detective Wilkins, Terrance. We’re all working together on this, and he has the lead.”

  “If you say it, I’ll do it.”

  The home was eerily quiet. There were no human voices or sounds from the television or radio.

  “Helena in?”

  Johnson shoo
k his head. “She’s staying with her sister for the time being. Took Deanna with her, too. Helena can’t bear to be in this house right now. I don’t know when she gonna be right with it.”

  “There are stages of grief. It’ll get better.”

  “I know it,” said Johnson with an annoyed, careless wave of his hand. He stood staring straight ahead, his mouth slightly open, eyes clouded with a glaze of alcohol.

  “You need to take care of yourself, too.”

  “I’ll rest easier when you clear this up.”

  “Can I have a look at Asa’s room?”

  “Follow me.”

  They went up the center-hall stairs to the second floor. It was a typical colonial for the neighborhood, three bedrooms and one full bath upstairs. Johnson led Ramone into Asa’s room.

  “Who’s been in here since his death?”

  “Me and Helena,” said Johnson. “Deanna, I expect. I did like you told me to. I didn’t let anyone else in.”

  “Good. I’m also thinking about the days leading up to Asa’s death. Did he have any friends or acquaintances in his room that you can remember?”

  Johnson considered the question. “I was at work during the daytime, of course. I’d have to ask Helena. But I can say almost certainly that the answer is no.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  “The past six months or so, going back to the end of last school year, I guess, Asa wasn’t hangin with anyone special.”

  “He wasn’t tight with anybody?”

  “He’d drifted apart from the ones he used to hang with. You know how kids do.”

  Girls do that more frequently, thought Ramone. Boys tend to hold on to friendships longer. But he knew that what Johnson was saying about his son was true. Diego and Asa had been friends once, to the degree that they saw each other almost every day. Diego had not even spoken about Asa, until he was killed, for a long time.

  “You need me here?” said Johnson.

  “That’s okay,” said Ramone. “I’ll be fine.”

  Johnson exited, and Ramone had a look around as he removed his latex gloves from his jacket pocket and fitted them on his hands. The bedroom was cleaner than Diego’s had ever been. The bed had been made. One poster, the obligatory Michael Jordan in a Bulls uniform, hung on the wall. Asa’s few football trophies, sitting atop a freestanding shelf filled with a surprising number of books, had been awarded for team accomplishment, not for individual effort.

  Ramone went through the dresser drawers. He looked in Asa’s closet and searched the pockets of his jackets and slacks. He ran his hand beneath the lower edge of the dresser and underneath the box spring of the bed. He did not find anything that Asa might have been concealing. He did not find anything that he thought would be pertinent to the investigation.

  Ramone went through Asa’s book bag, a one-strap JanSport. Inside were a day planner, a young-adult novel, and an Algebra I textbook with no papers between its covers. Asa’s journal was not in the bag.

  Ramone tried to put on a left-handed baseball mitt he found in the closet, but he could not fit it.

  A computer monitor sat atop Asa’s desk. Ramone settled into the chair and pulled out a drawer on rollers that held a keyboard, mouse pad, and mouse. He moved the mouse across the pad, and the monitor’s screen lit up. The screen saver was a plain blue field, and the icons were numerous, with Microsoft Outlook, Word, and Internet Explorer among them. Ramone was not an expert with computers, but there were PCs in his home and office, and he was familiar with these programs.

  He clicked on Outlook and got Asa’s e-mail site. Numerous messages appeared, but upon inspection, all of them appeared to be spam. He went into the Deleted and Sent files and found the boxes empty. He did the same with Journal, Notes, and Drafts, and got the same result. Ramone went online, got the Yahoo! opening screen, and clicked on Favorites. Asa had few sites listed in the column. Most were of the game and entertainment variety, and a few seemed to deal with the Civil War and local Civil War forts and cemeteries. Ramone went to Word and checked the files labeled “Asa’s Documents.” Everything saved appeared to be school related: essays and papers on science and history, and many dealing with the themes and characters of books.

  It was odd that there was so much scholastic material and nothing of a personal nature on the computer of a teenage boy.

  Ramone got out of the chair and stood in the center of the room. He removed his gloves as he looked at the walls, the bookshelves, and the top of the dresser. History told him that he had learned something here today, even if it had not yet come to him. But it was always frustrating to be at this stage of inertia in an investigation.

  He went downstairs to a silent first floor. He found Terrance Johnson in the backyard, seated in a lawn chair, a can of beer in his hand. Ramone found a similar chair, folded and leaning against the house, and carried it over to where Johnson sat.

  “You gonna join me?” said Johnson, holding up the can.

  “I don’t think so, thanks. I’ve still got some work ahead of me.”

  Ramone settled in.

  “Talk to me,” said Johnson. His pointed white teeth peeked out below a sweaty lip.

  “I don’t have anything solid to report yet. The positive news is there’s no reason to believe that Asa was involved in any kind of criminal activity.”

  “I knew that. I kept that boy straight.”

  “Did he have a cell phone? I’d like to get a look at his incoming and outgoing calls.”

  “Nah. I already told Detective Wilkins, we didn’t think Asa was ready for the responsibility.”

  “That’s how Regina and I keep track of Diego.”

  “I didn’t need to look for him. I didn’t let him go to parties, sleepovers, or nothin like that. He was home at night. That’s how I knew where he was.”

  Ramone loosened his tie at the neck. “Asa kept a journal, apparently. It would look like a notebook, or even a regular hardcover book without a title, with blank pages inside. It would be very helpful if I could locate it.”

  “I don’t recall seeing anything like that. He did like to write, though. He liked to read a whole lot, too.”

  “Lotta books in his room.”

  “Too many, you ask me.”

  How could there be too many books in a teenager’s room? thought Ramone. He would have been pleased if Diego had been interested in just one.

  “I didn’t mind the boy reading,” said Johnson. “Don’t get me wrong. But I was a little worried about him, focusing on just that. A young man needs to be well-rounded, and that goes beyond being book smart or getting good grades in school.”

  “You’re talking about athletics.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I heard he had dropped out of the football program.”

  “I was upset with him when he quit it, I’m not gonna lie. If you’re competitive out on the playing field, you’re gonna be competitive in life. Plus, it’s a tough world out here now. I didn’t want that boy to turn soft. You got a son; you understand what I’m saying.”

  “I guess it was doubly disappointing to you. I mean, you played a lot of football when you were coming up, didn’t you?”

  “When I was a kid. I played here in the city. But I had an ankle that got broke and then kept breaking on me. By the time I got to high school, I couldn’t compete. I would have been a good player, too. My body betrayed me, is what it was.”

  Ramone remembered Johnson at their sons’ football games. He was one of those fathers who frequently second-guessed the coaches and vocally berated the referees. He’d often see Johnson talking to Asa on the sidelines, telling him to find some heart, telling him to hit somebody. Always telling him what he was doing wrong. Ramone had seen the hurt in Asa’s eyes. No wonder the boy had lost his desire to play. His father was one of those guys who demanded his son be the athlete that he himself never was or could be.

  “I bought him that new North Face coat he was wearing,” said Johnson, looking at the weedy patch o
f grass at his feet, his voice gone low. “Two hundred dollars and seventy-five. I made a deal with him, told him that if I bought him that new coat, he was gonna have to go out for football the next season. Summer tryouts came and he had some excuse for why he didn’t want to play. Too hot, he wasn’t feeling up for it… all that. Boy, I gave him hell. Told him how ashamed I was of him.” Johnson’s lip trembled slightly. “I said to him, you gonna sit up in your room like some kinda faggot while other boys gonna be out there on that football field, turning into men?”

  Ramone, embarrassed and also a bit angry, did not look at Johnson.

  “When was the last time you saw him?” said Ramone.

  “I work a seven-to-three, so I’m back here around the time the boy gets home from school. He was headed out and I asked him where. He said, ‘I’m going for a walk.’ I said, ‘It’s too warm out for you to be wearin that coat. And you know you shouldn’t be wearing it anyway, ’cause you broke an agreement we had.’ ”

  “And?”

  “He said, ‘I love you, Dad.’ ” A tear broke loose from Johnson’s eye and rolled down his cheek. “That’s all he said. Asa left out the house right after that. The next time I saw him, he was cold. Someone had put a bullet in my boy’s head.”

  Ramone looked at the sky and the shadows lengthening on the grass. There were few hours of light remaining. He rose from his seat.

  DIEGO RAMONE HAD BEEN kicked out of the fake 7-Eleven in Montgomery County that afternoon by a guy, looked like some kind of Punjabi to him, who worked behind the counter. He could have been a Pakistani or even one of those Shiites. Dude had a turban on his head, was all Diego knew.

  “Get out,” the man had said. “I don’t want you in here.”

  Diego had been with his friend Toby. Toby was topped by a black skully, and both wore their jeans low and had drawstring-style bags on their backs. Diego had wanted to get a Sierra Mist before he got on the bus headed back to the District.

  “Wanna buy a soda,” said Diego.

  “I don’t want your money,” said the man, pointing to the door. “Out!”

  Diego and Toby had hard-eyed the man for a moment and left the store.

  Out on the sidewalk, on the avenue lined with apartment houses, Toby held up both of his fists and affected a boxer’s stance. “I shoulda introduced him to thunder and lightning.”