Butchers Hill

by Laura Lippman

  "You placed Donnie in the Nelsons' home, didn't you? Donnie, Destiny and Treasure, Eldon and Sal. Five kids in a three-bedroom house. Five kids who never had nice clothes and looked as if they didn't get enough to eat. Except Eldon. The Nelsons made at least twenty-five hundred dollars a month on that arrangement, possibly more if any of the children were classified as ‘special needs.' Where did the money go, Mr. Pearson?"

  "You'd have to ask the Nelsons that question."

  "Now see, this is where I get confused. Because I'm pretty sure it was your job to ask the Nelsons that question. You were in charge of making sure these children were cared for properly. You were one of those reform-minded young workers recruited by the system after the lawsuit. Why would you ignore the rules to put five kids in a run-down house in a terrible neighborhood? What was in it for you?"

  Pearson's desk was devoid of props. His hands crept across its surface, looking for something to occupy them, then retreated to his lap.

  "The Nelsons were loving, caring foster parents," he said. "Do you know how hard it is to find young, vigorous foster parents still in their thirties? The Nelsons believed they could provide a setting few foster parents could, even if they didn't have much in the way of material things. I believed in their vision."

  "How much did they pay you for that particular belief?"

  Pearson was cooler than she thought he would be, much harder to rattle. "You're dreaming up conspiracy scenarios again, Miss Monaghan. It's an interesting theory, I grant you. Social worker places children in home in return for kickbacks. I can see how it might happen. In theory."

  "It's not that complicated. A fourteen-year-old could figure it out. A fourteen-year-old did figure it out. Sal Hawkings put the pieces together and shook his old worker down until he arranged for a scholarship to Penfield. Of course, you wouldn't pay for it out of your own pocket. Even now, when you're making good money, you're still kind of tight, aren't you?"

  She could hear Pearson's knee knocking at the underside of his desk as he jiggled it. "Go on," he said. "I want to see where you're headed with this little story of yours."

  "I'm going back to a night five years ago. A boy is killed in front of his four friends. It's a horrible thing, terrifying even for street-hardened kids. But their social worker and their foster parents aren't worried about the fallout from that trauma. All they care about is splitting the kids up as quickly as possible, getting them in new homes so the reporters won't have time to focus on how weird it is for five foster kids to be living in some tiny little rowhouse in a rotten neighborhood where they receive virtually no supervision."

  "The compromises made in order to remove children from truly harmful environments are sometimes difficult for laymen to understand," Pearson said. "You can't imagine the conditions that these children had endured. The Nelsons' home was paradise to them."

  "Right."

  "The twins had an addict for a mother, you know. They lived in a basement without electricity or plumbing. They were assigned to me when she almost burned the place down with a candle. They were ecstatic to live in a three-bedroom house with a toilet.

  "Donnie—well, you know what his mother did, how she left him alone for days while she went off to Atlantic City. Then there was Eldon. His father caught him hitting a dog with a stick and decided to administer the exact same punishment to Eldon with the same stick. At least, that was the story Eldon's father told the Foster Care Review Board when he petitioned to get him back. My guess is he beat Eldon first, and Eldon turned on the dog. You know, that's actually a good indicator of violence in a family, violence against pets. As it happens, child abuse laws in this country were derived from the old anticruelty statutes. Until the late nineteenth century, there was no legal prohibition against harming one's children."

  Pearson's voice trailed off. He had veered almost automatically into a bureaucratic set piece, the kind of statement he might make before a Senate committee, then remembered his audience. He stared out the window at his undistinguished view.

  "What about Sal?"

  "Sal?" He looked genuinely confused, as if he couldn't place the name. "Oh, Sal. He was different, a true orphan, which is rare now. His parents were killed in a car accident when he was eight, and there was no other family, no place for him to go. He was sent to one of our best homes, run by a wonderful woman. A saint, an absolute saint. We could have used a thousand like her. But she suffered a stroke when Sal was eleven, and I had to find a new placement for him. He was the first child I put with the Nelsons." He paused. "I always liked Sal, you know. I would have helped him with Penfield under any circumstances. I even gave him a book once, one of my childhood favorites."

  The Kipling, Sal's precious Kipling.

  "Did Sal ever tell you?"

  "Tell me what?"

  "What the children saw on Butchers Hill the night Donnie was killed? Why they had to lie, never mention the car, or the other gunshots?"

  Pearson looked at her with something almost like pity, except he didn't like her enough to truly feel sorry for her. "Miss Monaghan, give it a rest. Yes, the Nelsons and I had a mutually advantageous financial arrangement, not that you'll ever be able to prove it. That doesn't mean Luther Beale didn't kill Donnie Moore or the twins. Face facts. A man who fires a gun at a group of children is capable of anything."

  "Why don't you call Penfield and tell them we're headed there to talk to Sal? Maybe if I threaten to send his benefactor away to prison, Sal's memory will get a lot better."

  "If I do this for you—if I convince Sal to tell the truth, whatever it is, you'll leave us alone?"

  "Yes." Tess figured it wasn't a binding promise. Chase Pearson's fate could be decided later. "You can put him on the speaker phone, if you like, right now, and I'll be out of your life sooner rather than later."

  Pearson reached for the phone and dialed.

  "Chase Pearson. Would you find Sal and ask him to speak to me? I know it's the last day of classes, but it's terribly urgent."

  Several minutes passed. Tess thought of Jackie's shoe store analogy—the longer someone had to look for something, the less chance there is they'll find it. Finally, there was a torrent of mumbling on the other end, rushed and high-pitched.

  "Are you sure?" Pearson asked. "Are you absolutely sure? Well, how long has it been since anyone has seen him? What happened to the body guard? How inept can you possibly be?" The last question must have been rhetorical, for he hung up the phone without waiting for an answer.

  "He's missing. Along with one of the groundkeeper's trucks. Apparently he ducked into the lavatory about thirty minutes ago and never came out. They found his school uniform in a stall, so he must have planned this, changing into a worker's clothes. He even left a note, telling them not to worry, that he had to leave in order to be safe, that he would travel faster if he went alone."

  "Jesus."

  "I bet I know where he's gone." Pearson looked up excitedly. "There's a place, a place he always goes back to when he's troubled or unhappy—"

  "Tell me."

  He narrowed his eyes. "No. I'll go find him on my own."

  "You mean you want to get to him first, get your stories straight, convince him to keep lying, as he has all these years." Tess allowed the flap of her knapsack to fall open, so Pearson could see the gun inside. "Where's Sal?"

  "He'll run from you, if you go there alone. He doesn't trust anyone but me."

  "Fine. Then we'll go together." Pearson started to object, and Tess flipped her knapsack again, showing her gun one more time. "I'd just follow you anyway, so you might as well take me along."

  Chapter 28

  They took Pearson's car, the sleek little 911 Porsche of which Sal had spoken so longingly. Tess had planned to take the wheel anyway, but seeing the Porsche cinched the deal. Was it bought with kickbacks from the foster child trade? She could ask Pearson later.

  "So you going to tell me where we're going?"

  "Not yet. Not until we're a little closer." />
  She drove on. The Porsche was a dream to drive. Eighty felt like fifty-five, and the usual twenty-five minutes from Annapolis to the Baltimore Beltway sped by in fifteen.

  "Now?" she said, turning on to Interstate 95.

  "Not yet." She wondered what Pearson was trying to pull, if he still thought he might get to Sal first. If so, he was underestimating her. "It's in the old neighborhood, I'll tell you that much."

  "Good." She zipped past the exits for downtown.

  "Why are you taking the McHenry Tunnel?" Pearson asked suspiciously.

  "I think we can make better time going in Eastern Avenue," she lied, as they dipped into the belly of the tunnel. Suddenly, she took her foot off the accelerator and let the car drift forward of its own momentum, its speed plummeting. Horns sounded behind them, echoing harshly off the tile walls.

  "You'll get us killed," Pearson yelled, grabbing for the steering wheel, so the car slithered to the left, and then back into the right lane.

  "Possibly. I'm more likely to cause a horrible traffic jam, and we won't get out of here for hours, and by then it will be too late to find Sal. Now tell me where I'm going. Exactly."

  "Only if you start driving again."

  Tess tapped the accelerator. The car was up to thirty now, still a little slow for the tunnel, but fast enough to avoid being rear-ended.

  "The Kipling is the key," Pearson said.

  "Kipling?"

  "Sal made an allusion to one of his poems in his note. He travels fastest who travels alone. It reminded me of another poem he liked, one he taught the other children."

  "So?"

  "‘By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea / There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me; / For the wind is in the palm trees, and the temple bells they say: / Come back, you British soldier, come back to Mandalay.'"

  "Very nice. But what does it have to do with Sal?"

  "The pagoda. He'll be at the Patterson Park pagoda."

  There's a Burma girl a-settin'. Hadn't Treasure said Destiny had gone to Burma? The pagoda must be the safe place of which Sal had spoken. Not so safe for Destiny, though, she had died at its feet. The porsche began the slow gradual climb out of the tunnel. Good, the toll lines weren't too long. Tess picked the one on the far right, and flicked a switch to lower the power window.

  What if someone was going to kill Sal? What if he had been summoned to the pagoda just as Destiny was, to meet a murderer?

  "Hand me my phone," she said to Pearson. "It's in the side pocket of my knapsack."

  "Why do you need a phone?"

  "I think Sal's in danger. Destiny died at the pagoda, Treasure wasn't far from it. Maybe the police can get there faster than we can."

  Or what if Sal had been the one to summon Destiny? What if Sal was the killer? Then who was he planning to kill this time?

  Pearson pulled out her phone, lowered his window, then flung it backward in the path of a car that had just emerged from the tunnel.

  "You son of a bitch."

  "No police," Pearson said calmly. "That was our deal."

  Tess wanted to argue, but it was her turn to roll up to the toll booth. She looked over at the far right lane, where a transit cop was parked, surveying the traffic.

  "That'll be one dollar, ma'am," the attendant said.

  Tess gave her an ear-splitting scream instead. "He's car-jacking me! Oh my God, call the police, he's carjacking me, he's going to kill me!" She rammed the gate, which was slightly harder to break than she had anticipated. Well, Pearson probably had insurance. Not that you could ever really fix body damage. But it was only fair. An eye for an eye, a Porsche for a portable phone.

  "What the hell are you doing?"

  "Getting us a police escort. There's a killer in Patterson Park, and it's either Sal or the person he's gone to meet. I'm afraid your political future has to take a back seat to such considerations."

  "You're an idiot," Pearson shouted back at her, holding onto the handle above the door. "Sal will never tell you what you want to know, I'll see to that."

  Technically, Baltimore police had a policy forbidding high-speed pursuits in the city, so the flashing lights Tess saw in the rearview mirror hung back, slowing at intersections. Luckily for her, the lights on Eastern Avenue, maddening under normal circumstances, proved to be perfectly synched when a driver was going ninety mph. She reached the southeast corner of the park in less than five minutes, but the pagoda was in the northwest corner. She zipped along its southern border, then turned north, running up on the sidewalk and scattering a few dog walkers as the car came to rest fifty yards from the pagoda.

  She could still see the police in her rearview mirror. Of course, they thought she was a victim, the terrified hostage of a crazed carjacker. Sal was straight ahead, waiting, a windbreaker pulled close to his body, as if the day were cool. His gaze was fixed on a tall, muscular young man in baggy jeans and a tank top, approaching from the east. The man looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place him. She threw the car into park, stripping the gears, grabbed her gun from her knapsack and fell out of the car, screaming all the while.

  "He tried to kill me, he tried to kill me," she screamed, running toward the pagoda. "Please someone help me, he's trying to kill me."

  As she had hoped, her screams distracted Sal and the approaching man. She ran between them, firing once into the air, just to show them she knew how to use a weapon. But wasn't that how Luther Beale had started, firing one shot up into the sky?

  "Whatever you have, drop it," she said. She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. "Both of you."

  Sal looked stunned, while the muscular young man smiled. She finally placed him. It was the monitor from the Nelson's school, very much out of uniform. The one who had lectured her on survival.

  "What makes you think I have a weapon?" he asked, his round face innocent and guileless. "He's the killer, aren't you Sal? He was probably fixing to kill me when he asked me to come here today. After all, I'm the only one left who knows what he did. Once I'm dead, he's home free."

  Sal cried, a child's wail. "That's not fair, Eldon. We promised to never tell, not ever. All for one, and one for all. Besides, you're the one who asked me here."

  "All for one and one for all. Right. I didn't see you helping the rest of us get fancy scholarships. From the day they split us up, it was every man for himself."

  "But I didn't know where to find you. Ask her, she'll tell you. I even broke into her office just to get your address."

  So this was little chubby Eldon, all grown up. He wasn't really listening. He was reaching behind himself, Tess saw. To scratch his back, or to pull out a weapon? It was a hell of a split-minute decision to have to make.

  The cops made it for her.

  "Freeze," one yelled, as six police officers came running across the lawn. "And throw your weapons down, now. Everybody. That includes you, miss."

  Tess threw down her .38 happily. Eldon dropped a semi-automatic, a cruel-looking gun. Sal pulled a serrated butcher knife from his jacket, and let it fall to the grass. What a flimsy little thing it was, next to Eldon's gun, how inadequate. It would be hard, of course, trying to find a weapon at Penfield on such short notice.

  "Eldon said he needed me," Sal said, almost sobbing now. "He said some shit was coming down, and he needed my help. You probably told Destiny and Treasure the same thing, you son of a bitch. Why'd you kill them? What'd they ever do to you?"

  "Fuck you, man," Eldon said, his hands on his head as the cops patted him down. "You started it all. If it weren't for you, none of this shit would have happened."

  Tess, who was also being patted down, looked at the two of them. She might as well get her questions in now. "There was a car, wasn't there, the night Donnie died. A car, and two more shots fired, just as Luther Beale maintained."

  "I don't remember a car—" Sal began.

  Eldon shrugged, a small, cramped gesture given that his hands were on his head. "A car? The
re may have been. It doesn't matter."

  "It matters to Luther Beale."

  "You really don't get it, do you?" Eldon looked disgusted. "Stupid bitch, stirring everything up, and never really getting it. None of that shit matters because Sal killed Donnie Moore. Didn't you, Sal? Oh, you were such a big man, carrying your gun around, trying to protect us all. Well, you protected Donnie right into the grave."

  At the police station, as the cops tried to untangle the various felonies of the day, Tess almost felt sorry for the Beacon-Light police reporter, a young man she knew only by reputation. Herman Peters, aka the Hermanator, a man who was rumored to never, ever, be without his beeper. Rosy-cheeked, with dark curly hair, he looked like the kind of smiling boy who should grace a box of instant cocoa. But he was a tenacious, tough reporter, intent on fact and nuance, not as easily satisfied with the little scraps spoon-fed to the television reporters.

  "I still don't understand," she heard him saying insistently to Tull, who was handling media while his fellow homicide detectives interviewed Eldon, Sal, and Pearson. Because of the public nature of the crime, the reporters had descended on the police station within minutes of the showdown in Patterson Park. "You say Donnie Moore was killed by his friend Sal Hawkings, but you're going to charge Eldon Kane with the murder of Keisha Moore and her boyfriend, and he's also a suspect in the deaths of the Teeter twins?"

  "It's our supposition that Eldon was a hit man, working for the Nelsons. He killed anyone who threatened to expose their operation in D.C. Cops down there just executed a search warrant at the Benjamin Banneker Academy, found a basement full of stolen goods and an attic full of guns. They had expanded the scope of their operation since they moved to Washington."

  "Back up a minute," the Hermanator pleaded. "I'm not getting all of this."

  "Okay," Tull said with a grin. "It all begins with a couple who figure they can get cheap labor through the city's foster care system. The original mom-and-pop operation, if you will."

  Sal should have been reading Dickens instead of Kipling, Tess thought as she half-listened to Tull unspool the dark yarn. The Nelsons had taken in foster children as workers in their fencing operation, at first a small-time operation. The original mom-and-pop burglary ring. The children had stolen car radios and anything else that wasn't nailed down, but the real money was in weapons. Sal had even helped himself to a gun from the Nelsons' cache. So when Luther Beale had opened fire that night, Sal had shot back. Problem was, he wasn't a very good shot, and he had ended up hitting Donnie instead. Or so he thought.