And most of all, as far as Rayford was concerned, it helped that he’d had a private, intense discussion with Nowicki the day Canoza returned to duty, at the end of which Nowicki swore on his shield that Rayford would be a detective sergeant by Labor Day or he’d know the reason why, which satisfied Rayford enough to call Reseta at home just to tell him, “I told you so.”
Rayford was pondering all this as he was passing the Scavellis’ house when something to the right of the porch steps caught his eye, and he hit the brakes, backed up, and parked. He saw a sign that said “House For Sale” that he knew hadn’t been there yesterday. He tried to recall what Stramsky had told him about the Scavellis and their two children who had died in the fire in their house on Norwood Hill. He thought Stramsky had said they had had no other children, but this sign wasn’t a legal notice put up by anybody from the city or the county. It was a sign somebody had bought in a hardware store with a white space at the bottom for a phone number. But the Scavellis must have a relative somewhere, Rayford thought, or who else would be able to make a claim on the property in order to sell it?
Rayford got out of the MU to check the sign to satisfy his own curiosity, but there was something not right about the sign. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something goofy about it. He read it a dozen times, thinking there had to be something weird with the phone number, because what could be weird about the words “House For Sale”? When he was looking at the number for about the tenth time again and stretching his memory to make some association with it, something else caught his eye: a flame through the window in the cellar. It looked like a cigarette lighter. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and he wondered if he was seeing things.
A moment later he saw what was obviously the glow of a cigarette.
Some motherfucker’s squattin’ in this house. Just when tonight looked like it was goin’ be a lovely night of sweet service, some motherfucker got to pick this place to squat. She-it, this ain’t no squatter. This is some diddy-bop think he found a cool place to smoke.
Rayford tried to remember where all the doors were in the Scavelli house as he stepped back on the sidewalk to call the base on his epaulet radio. He knew there was a door out of the kitchen in the back of the house and another one on the south side facing the Hle-becs’ house. He thought those were the only two, but he walked around the north side of the house to make sure. He found no doors but he did find two block-glass windows, one with a clothes-dryer vent in it.
Satisfied that there were only the three doors, he went back onto the sidewalk and called for backup for a possible burglary.
Two minutes later Reseta pulled up with no lights or siren.
“What’s up?”
“Somebody smokin’ in the cellar. Probably some kid.”
“Try any of the doors?”
Rayford shook his head. “Just checked to make sure there wasn’t one on the north side.”
“So there’s just the one in the back and one in the side, right?”
Rayford nodded.
“Okay,” Reseta said. “I’ll take the back.”
“Ain’t goin’ in, are ya?”
“Hell no, I’m just gonna rattle the door and holler. Damn Sca-vellis. Dead or locked up, still can’t get away from ’em.”
Rayford heard Reseta announcing his presence by hollering and pounding on the kitchen door, then drew his nine and turned his MagLite on, his gaze darting from the front door to the side door and back.
A few seconds later, the side door inched open, and somebody started tiptoeing toward Rayford, who brought his MagLite up alongside his nine, blinding the burglar, and shouted, “Freeze! Police! Get on the ground! Now! Get down!”
The tiptoer threw up his arms to ward off the light, then spun around and ran smack into Reseta, who caught him by the arm and put him on the ground with a hip toss. Rayford rushed to assist Reseta, and in a moment, the burglar’s hands were cuffed behind his back and Reseta was patting him down. He found nothing, then rolled him over.
“Oh man, look here. Look who we have here.”
“Who?”
“My little Irish runaway. Little Billy Arbaugh. Remember him?”
“The one split from his foster home?”
“None other. So this is where you’re livin’ now, huh?”
“Fuck you.”
“Every time you run, Billy-boy, you’re goin’ right back there, don’t you know that? Till everybody gets tired chasin’ you, then it’s the next step up the penal ladder.”
“You can take me back but you can’t make me stay.”
“Well if you’re gonna run, hotshot, why don’t you really run, huh? You think comin’ down here to the Flats is runnin’? From Maplewood? What is that—two and a half miles?”
“Whatta you care, fuck-face? Ain’t none of your business.”
“More and more, kid, I wish it wasn’t. But it is. So get up.”
Reseta took one arm and Rayford the other and they tried to pull him up but he went limp.
“Aw, c’mon, kid, don’t pull this crap, c’mon, get on your feet, you’re just makin’ it harder.”
“You think I’m gonna make it easy for you to take me back there, you’re fulla shit. Those pigs, all they feed us is rolled oats. Oughta be arrestin’ them, not me.”
“Rolled oats?” Rayford said.
“Hey, that’s one for the Children’s Bureau to figure out.”
“Oh yeah, like ’em fuckers give a shit.”
“Well it’s their job, kid, not ours.”
“Why don’t none of you fuckers believe me? I told the fuckin’ judge, that guy down the juvey center, teachers, guidance counselors—”
“Told everybody what?” Rayford said.
“Don’t listen to him, Rayf, he’s gamin’ us.”
“What’d you tell everybody, huh?”
“They’re starvin’ us to death. Those fuckers took out big insurance policies on us.”
Reseta started dragging the kid toward the sidewalk. “And there’s black helicopters gonna fly ’em to Brazil after they cash in.”
“Big fuckin’ joke to you, huh? Littlest kid in the house, he’s seven years old, he don’t weigh thirty pounds. Look at me, look how skinny I am. If I didn’t find this place, eat the food here, I’d be dead now. They won’t even let us drink water, they’re tryin’ to kill us, I’m tellin’ you. All you gotta do is go there, see for yourself, you don’t believe me.”
“Whattaya think, James? Think we oughta check it out?”
“Children’s Bureau, Rayf, that’s their job, you know? Don’t listen to this kid, all he’s done from my first contact with him is lie. He’s a pro, I’m tellin’ ya.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to check it out, would it?”
“Hey, I went to the house, remember? I saw the other kids. They’re not starvin’! But you wanna check it out, be my guest, it’s your collar anyway, you got here first. I’m goin’ home, try to get some sleep.”
That said, Reseta let go of the kid’s arm and headed for his MU.
Instead of slumping as Rayford expected him to do, the kid straightened up. “You gonna check it out, huh?”
If this kid was a liar, he was Oscar material.
Rayford started to lead the boy out on the street, but there was Reseta standing by his MU, one foot still on the street. “Hey, Rayf, I don’t wanna see you do somethin’ dumb, okay?”
“Yeah? So?”
“So think, man, c’mon. Foster children? Big policies on their lives? Husbands, wives, ex-husbands, ex-wives, yeah, but foster kids? Don’t take this wrong, Rayf, okay, but the only reason you’re even thinkin’ about checkin’ this out is ’cause of your own baggage, man.”
“What baggage? What’re you talkin’ about?”
“Aw, man, c’mon, I have to spell it out?”
“Yeah. I think you do ’cause I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“Rayf, for six years, man, when we run what do you tal
k about? Huh? Subject comes up once a week at least.”
“You lost me. What?”
“How old would your boy be now, huh? You hear about a seven-year-old boy maybe bein’ mistreated, your nose gets wide open. C’mon, Rayf, this kid’s a pro. You wanna check somethin’ out? Go inside. C’mon, Nowicki’s gonna make you detective sergeant, go on in, look around, tell me what you see.”
“And look for what exactly?”
“I’m not gonna tell you, you’re the one wants to be a detective. Just go on in, let your intelligence be your guide. Go on, I’ll watch him.”
“Don’t listen to him, man, he’s just like everybody else, nobody gives a shit.”
“Shut up, kid. Okay, I’m goin’ in,” Rayford said, and after Reseta took charge of the boy Rayford went in the same door the boy had come out on the side of the house.
He went in and turned on the light to the cellar. He went down the steps and found the floor covered with at least six inches of putrid water with opened, empty cans floating everywhere and many others visible just below the water’s surface: pink salmon, sardines, tuna, peaches, pears, applesauce, baked beans, chocolate pudding, cola—the boy had been eating and drinking his way through the Scavellis’ pantry and throwing the empties down the steps where their residue was mixing with the backed-up sewer water.
Rayford didn’t see anything else that caught his eye, so he went back up the steps, turned out the light, and went into the cramped, messy kitchen. All the cupboard doors were open, and there weren’t too many cans still left on the shelves. What immediately caught Rayford’s eye was the heaps of mail and newspapers scattered across the small dining table near the refrigerator and on one chair and on the floor underneath the table. The boy had apparently been amusing himself by going through the Scavellis’ mail every day and reading their daily paper.
Well you want to be a detective, Rayford thought, you better find something here. Reseta sounds too damn sure of himself. What’s he think I’m gonna see that’ll make me know the kid’s lying?
Rayford fingered through the stacks of envelopes and papers. Among all the utility bills and advertising circulars, he found Social Security checks for both the Scavellis. The delivery dates on them showed they’d each been in the house at least a week. If the kid was the pro Reseta insisted he was why hadn’t he tried to sell them to somebody old enough to cash them? Surely with that much time on his hands the kid would’ve thought of that. Maybe he didn’t trust anyone old enough to try cashing them. Or maybe nobody he’d approached had offered him a satisfactory way to share the money. Nah, this isn’t what Reseta wants me to find.
Well what then? Rayford kept pushing the papers around, first the bills, then the advertising circulars, then the newspapers. It was the newspapers that finally attracted and held his gaze. There was something about them, but he wasn’t sure what. Then it became so obvious he laughed out loud. The ones on the table were all the same section of the paper—not sports, not world, national, or state news, not food, and not entertainment. The only news that interested this kid was the section devoted to “local” news. At the bottom of that stack was the front-page story of Nick Scavelli’s assault on Canoza and Mary Rose Scavelli’s death. And each succeeding paper in the pile was open and folded to the follow-up story the next day. The kid had picked this house because he knew from the daily paper nobody was coming back here to live, and he could stay as long as the canned food held out. Now how did Reseta know that? What the hell did he see that I didn’t?
He turned off the lights and went back outside.
“Okay, James. So how’d you know, huh?”
“Look at the sign.”
“What, the For Sale sign?”
“Yeah the For Sale sign, look at it.”
“I did. That’s what made me stop. I know there’s somethin’ wrong with it—aw man. I don’t believe it.”
“See what I mean? Kid’s a pro. Every word’s a lie, and then he busts your balls on top of it.”
“Hey, I didn’t put that sign up there, I don’t know nothin’ about that sign.”
“Yeah, right. Gimme him, James, go on home, get some sleep.”
“I’m tellin’ ya, I don’t know nothin’ about that sign—”
“Shut up and get in the back here! Had me goin’ with your bullcrap about starvin’ kids. Can’t believe I didn’t recognize that number.”
“You gonna tell this?” Reseta said, trying not to laugh.
“You tell this I’m goin’ tell your dream.”
“Oh man, you have to tell—one of us has to tell this! It’s too good not to tell. I promise I won’t tell that you didn’t recognize the number, okay? But we have to tell, man, it’s too good—tell you what, let me go grab up the sign—”
“Aw no, James, nothin’ doin’, it’s my collar, it’s my sign, I’m takin’ the sign, that’s evidence, that’s probable cause, man—”
“How could that be probable cause if you didn’t recognize the number?”
“The sign itself was enough to make me stop, I didn’t have to recognize the number, I knew the situation here—”
“Ohhhh, you knew the situation, I see. That’s why you’re gonna make detective sergeant. You recognize the situation, so you didn’t have to recognize the number for the courthouse, I get it.”
“Awright, James, have your fun, go on and laugh all you want, man, but hand it over, it’s my evidence, c’mon.”
Reseta handed the sign over. “I’m givin’ you twenty-four hours, Rayf. If this story’s not all over City Hall this time tomorrow night, I’m tellin’, man.”
After he’d restrained the boy’s legs, Rayford put the sign in the front seat on top of his gear bag.
“Know what, James? You can tell the whole thing far as I’m concerned. ’Cause there wasn’t any reason for me to recognize that number. Anybody I need to call in the courthouse, I know their number there. I don’t b’lieve I’ve called that switchboard number more’n twice in six years, man, so go ’head and tell it all, I ain’t scared to look a fool. This ain’t goin’ touch me at all, man, go on and tell it, shit.”
“Aw now see? You gonna be like that, Rayf, I’m not gonna have any fun at all.”
“Hey, how long you guys gonna keep yakkin’, huh? I needa take a piss, let’s go if we’re goin’.”
“Shut up, you little Irish prick,” Reseta said, “before I whack you in the shins.”
“And you talk about my baggage,” Rayford said.
“Yeah, but the difference is, I understand my baggage. You didn’t even know you were carryin’ any till I explained it to you.”
“Talk trash on me all you want, James,” Rayford said, laughing hard, “I will not be touched. You can talk me a shit sombrero, man, that will not be me wearin’ it—wait, wait, hold him a second.”
“Why?”
Rayford got a couple of green plastic garbage bags out of his gear bag and spread them across and over the front of the backseat.
“Okay, kid, you need to pee, go right ahead but now you won’t funk up my vehicle.”
“You think I’m gonna piss my pants?”
“Wouldn’t put it past you. Put the courthouse number on that sign, wanna play everybody for a fool, be just like you to try to funk up my vehicle. Now shut up and get in. Watch your head. And swing your legs out.”
Rayford attached the nylon restraining strap to the boy’s legs, then shut the door on the other end, got behind the wheel, started the engine, reported in to base where he was headed and why. Then he waved to Reseta and pulled away from the Scavellis’ house, heading south toward the juvey center.
“ ’Bout time,” his prisoner said.
“Shut up, kid,” Rayford said, glaring at him in the mirror. “Put the courthouse phone number on that sign, think you a real wise guy—” ,
“I didn’t put that number there.”
“You didn’t put the sign up either, did ya? And you weren’t livin’ in that house, were ya? Or eatin�
�� all that food, or throwin’ all those cans down the cellar steps either.”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“Yeah, right, you don’t know anything. Well here’s what I know, kid. You did at least one thing right today. You served as a bad example for a police officer. Me. William Milton Rayford. Patrolman. Soon to be detective sergeant. And I hope somebody has sense enough to make you clean up that house.”
“I’m not cleanin’ it up, I didn’t dirty it up.”
When Rayford stopped at the light at the intersection of Main and Broad, he looked at the kid in the mirror and thought, my beautiful little boy is dead and your lyin’ ass is alive. Just one more thing God got to answer for.
“What’re you waitin’ for, there’s nobody comin’! Go through it, I gotta piss I told ya!”
“Everything you say is a lie, kid, why should I believe you got to pee?”
“Oh you think you’re real fuckin’ smart, don’tcha? Fuckin’ nigger you.”
“Smart is relative, kid. Everybody’s smart about somethin’, everybody’s ignorant about somethin’. The lesson for you to think on tonight is you’re the one in the backseat. Maybe you oughta start askin’ yourself how many times you wanna ride back there.”
The light changed and Rayford drove on, thinking, if that’s the lesson for him tonight, what’s the lesson for me? Got to learn how to not let liars like him touch me with his lies. Got to get a whole lot smarter about my baggage. And I damn sure got to memorize the number of the courthouse or I’ll never be able to shake this. Only chance I had was to tell it first. And that’s gone, ’cause soon as James get back, I know he’s goin’ tell Stramsky. Got-damn … goin’ live with this for the next twenty years.…
And why’s the PO still delivering mail to that address? And why’s the paper still being delivered? Okay, so if the kid was taking the mail out of the box every day, I can understand why the mailman wouldn’t get wise, but the paper? Don’t the people there read their own news? Guess not. Somethin’ else for me to learn.…
Saving Room for Dessert Page 30