The Night Gardener

by George Pelecanos

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Well, you always were a better cop than me.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” said Holiday. “You say I was good, and so did the old man. But I wasn’t.”

  “That’s history.”

  “No. Earlier tonight I came up on the uniform I was tailing, and we had a little talk. Officer Grady Dunne. He didn’t have anything to do with Asa Johnson or Reginald Wilson. But he was polluted. I’m sayin the guy had maggots crawling around inside him.” Holiday hit his cigarette and blew smoke at his feet. “That was me before I got tossed. Shit, that motherfucker even looked like me.”

  “The poor bastard.”

  “I’m serious, man. I was looking at him and I was seeing myself if I’d stayed on the force. What I would have become. No question, I was headed for a bad end. You were right to go after me. I was lucky to walk away.”

  “Guys like him weed themselves out.”

  “Sometimes,” said Holiday. “And sometimes they need a little push.”

  Holiday pitched his cigarette out into the street.

  “You still thinking of moving the old man?” said Ramone.

  “I’m doing it,” said Holiday.

  “Call me when you’re done. I’ll pick you up.”

  Holiday completed his task. Ramone retrieved him and dropped him back at his Lincoln. They heard the faint sirens of the squad cars arriving before the ambulance, and they shook hands.

  “So long, Doc. I need to get home.”

  As Holiday walked to his Lincoln, Ramone drove off the street. He speed-dialed Regina at their house.

  “Gus?”

  “It is your man,” said Ramone. “Everything all right?”

  “Diego’s still up,” said Regina. “Alana’s in her bedroom, talking to her dolls. We’re all just waitin on you.”

  “I’m headed back to the mother ship,” said Ramone. He told her he loved her and ended the call.

  RAMONE ENTERED HIS HOME on Rittenhouse and locked his gun and shield in the usual drawer. The first floor was still. He went to a small table in the dining room holding bottles of liquor and poured himself a shot of Jameson. It went down right. He could have killed the whole bottle. If not for his family, it would have been easy to become that kind of man.

  Ramone checked the locks on the front and back doors and went up the stairs.

  In the hallway, he noticed the bar of light under his bedroom door. He walked into Alana’s room and found her asleep in her bed, her Barbies, Kens, and Groovy Girls lined up on the blanket, their backs against the wall, all neatly spaced in a row. He bent forward and kissed Alana’s cheek. He brushed a strand of damp, curly hair off her forehead and stood looking at her for a moment before he turned off her bedside light.

  Ramone went to Diego’s room, knocked on the door, and pushed it open. Diego was atop the sheets, listening to a Backyard CD on his portable system, keeping the volume low. He was looking through a Don Diva magazine but did not seem to be engaged in it. His eyes were hollow, and it appeared he had been crying. His world had been tilted. It would right itself, but never to the degree of comfort where it had been.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m blown, Dad.”

  “Let’s talk some,” said Ramone, pulling a chair over to his son’s bed. “Then you should get to sleep.”

  A little while later, Ramone closed Diego’s door behind him and walked down the hall to his own bedroom. Regina was in their king, reading a book under the light of a lamp, her head on a doubled pillow. They exchanged a long look, and then Ramone undressed and went to the bathroom, where he washed thoroughly and tried to get the smell of beer and liquor off his breath. He came back to the bed in his boxers and got under the sheets. Regina turned into him and they embraced. He kissed her soft lips once and again, and found himself hard and kissed her with his open mouth. She pushed him gently away.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” said Regina. “You getting greedy, going for two in a row.”

  “A guy can dream, can’t he?”

  “You better sleep before you have that dream. Comin in here back-to-back nights with liquor on your breath.”

  “That’s the mouthwash. It’s got alcohol in it.”

  “You talking about that mouthwash comes from Dublin?”

  “Go ahead, Regina.”

  “You and your new drinking buddy, Doc Holiday.”

  “He’s all right.”

  “What’s he looking like these days?”

  “He’s got a little belly on him. They call it the Holiday Hump.”

  They embraced again. She fit into him exactly. It was as though they were one person, separated each day, brought back together at night. He couldn’t imagine being apart from her, not even in death.

  “You smell like booze and cigarettes, like you did when we first started dating,” said Regina. “When you’d show up at my apartment after last call. What was that place you liked, where all those new wave white girls used to hang out? Constipation?”

  “The Constable. That wasn’t me. Least it doesn’t seem like it today.”

  “Now we’ve got this. And all the challenges that go with it.”

  “And the good things, too.”

  She had turned off her lamp, and they were in darkness, their eyes slowly adjusting to the absence of light. Ramone brushed his fingers down Regina’s arm.

  “What are we going to do about Diego?” said Regina.

  “I talked to him,” said Ramone. “He can finish out the year in his old school. It feels right. Next year we can put him in one of the blue-collar Catholic high schools. Carroll, DeMatha… either one of those would be a good place for him.”

  “How’re we gonna afford that?”

  “It’s not like it’s a fortune. I’ll sell the house in Silver Spring, I have to. Hell, the dirt alone’s worth a bundle. We’ll be fine.”

  “Did you talk about Asa?”

  “Yes.”

  “How was Diego with it?”

  “His world got rocked. He’s probably stressing about all the times he called his friend soft or gay. Not knowing what that kid was going through inside.”

  “Can you imagine what it’s like to be that way in this climate? Being told all the time that you’re not wanted, that there’s no place for you in this new compassionate world. All the hate we got out here, and the politicians throwing gasoline on the fire. I don’t know what Bible those haters are reading, but it’s not the one I was raised on.”

  “Forget about those fuckin idiots. What about everyday people who aren’t about hate but still spread it? Diego didn’t mean anything by those words, but now it’s got him thinking hard on what comes out of his mouth. I been thinking on it myself.”

  “You and all your friends.”

  “You’re right. Down at the office we go back and forth with that kinda shit all day. You’d look good in a dress, you’ve got gaydar… all that.”

  “So you gonna change your ways now, huh?”

  “Probably not,” said Ramone. “I’m just a man, no more enlightened than any other. But I am gonna think twice before I talk that kind of trash. I hope Diego does, too.”

  “What else you and your son talk about?” said Regina. “You were in his room a while.”

  “I was putting the last piece of the puzzle together on Asa’s death. I was pretty sure I knew, but Diego confirmed it.”

  “And?”

  “You know how I always told him to be aware of any firearms in the homes of his friends?”

  “I know. That’s your biggest fear.”

  “I’ve seen way too many accidents, Regina. Kids finding their fathers’ guns and testing them out.”

  “Okay.”

  “Diego and his friends just have that knowledge. They read the gun magazines because they’re boys and they’re interested. The Spriggs twins know I have a Glock and that I keep it locked up. They all know these things.”

  “Oh, Gus…”

  “Diego
says that Asa’s father kept a revolver in their home. He didn’t know if it was a thirty-eight. But I’m betting that it was.”

  “Lord.”

  “The ultimate fuck-you to his old man,” said Ramone. “Asa killed himself with his father’s gun.”

  She hugged him tightly. They lay in the dark and neither of them could find sleep.

  “Will you go to church with us on Sunday?” said Regina.

  Ramone said that he would.

  THIRTY-NINE

  AFTER CHURCH, RAMONE took the family to a restaurant over the District line for lunch. It was family owned and had survived despite the encroachment of the chains into downtown Silver Spring. Diego ordered the Vietnamese steak, his favorite dish, and Alana drank fresh lemonade and walked back and forth through the beaded curtains that led to the restrooms. Church had been much needed, and this was a nice way to continue the afternoon. Also, Ramone was putting off what he knew had to be done.

  Back at the house, Ramone stayed in his suit and told Regina he’d be back soon. He dropped Diego, who had changed into shorts, Nikes, and a Ronald Spriggs-designed T, down at the basketball courts on Third, where Shaka was waiting. He instructed Diego to keep his cell on and to call either him or Regina if he went anywhere else.

  Ramone drove slowly over to the Johnson house. He parked but did not immediately get out of the car. He had told Bill Wilkins that he would update Terrance Johnson on the findings of the case. Now he almost wished he had let Garloo take the lead. He was about to tell Johnson that his son had committed suicide and that he had done so with Terrance’s gun. In addition, he had to tell Terrance that Asa was gay. There was no predicting Terrance’s reaction. But this needed to be done.

  Terrance must have known that his gun was missing, and he had to have suspected that Asa took it. His fear would have been that Asa had been robbed of the gun and shot with it. The death of his son, coupled with extreme feelings of guilt, had shattered him. But even with that, he could not have imagined that Asa had used the gun on himself.

  Ramone had not told Wilkins or any of his other coworkers about the gun. If Wilkins were to enter it into his paperwork, Terrance Johnson could be charged with possession of an illegal firearm. Only police officers, federal agents, and special security types were permitted to own handguns in D.C. Johnson had bought the thirty-eight hot or he had been a down-the-chain recipient of a straw purchase originated in Virginia or Maryland. Legally, he was wrong. But Ramone wasn’t going to report it. Johnson had enough to live with. There wasn’t a point in piling any more misery on him, his wife, and their last living child.

  He wasn’t going to be entirely forthcoming with Terrance Johnson, either. Ramone had deduced the identity of Asa’s older boyfriend, called RoboMan in the journal. Asa’s math teacher had said that Asa had come to him for extra-credit work after school the day of his death. But there were no such papers in Asa’s locker, book bag, or bedroom. RoboMan had to be a thinly veiled moniker for Robert Bolton. Ramone had found Bolton extremely defensive on the subject of stereotyping young black men when they had their conversation. But he had been defending Asa. Bolton was in love with him.

  Ramone would mention his suspicions to the people who worked in Morals. This kind of thing was out of his bailiwick. He simply didn’t know what to do with what he’d found. He wanted to get rid of it.

  He intended to keep information from his fellow officers in the MPD. He would keep information from the boy’s father. It was like Holiday said: He wasn’t so straight.

  He got out of the Tahoe, walked up to the Johnson residence, and knocked on the front door. He heard Terrance Johnson’s footsteps approaching. Ramone’s impulse was to go back to his SUV. But the door opened, and he shook Johnson’s hand and stepped into the house.

  DAN HOLIDAY LIT A cigarette and tossed the match into the ashtray before him. It sat next to a vodka tonic on the bar. He stood in the middle of a group including Jerry Fink, Bob Bonano, and Bradley West. They were kidding themselves with Bloody Marys. Holiday had no such self-delusions. He needed a real drink.

  Leo’s was empty except for Leo Vazoulis and the four of them. Fink had just returned from the juke. A strong horn-and-backup-girl intro, and then a husky male vocal came into the room.

  “‘It isn’t what you got, it’s what you give,’” sang Fink, doing the girl part.

  “The Jimmy Castor Bunch,” said Bradley West, the writer.

  “Nah, this was before the Bunch,” said Fink, “and all that Troglodyte shit. Jimmy Castor was a soul singer before he was a novelty act.”

  “Okay,” said West, “I got the Bunch thing wrong. But here’s the five-dollar question. What singer did Jimmy Castor replace in a famous group, way back in his career?”

  “Clyde McPhatter,” said Fink. “From the Drifters.”

  “Wrong.”

  Fink grinned stupidly. “Bo Donaldson, from the Heywoods?”

  “He replaced Frankie Lymon,” said West. “As in, and the Teenagers.”

  “The little junkie,” said Bonano. His cell phone, sitting on the bar, was playing Ennio Morricone’s most famous theme, but Bonano was ignoring it.

  “You owe me five,” said West.

  “You take credit cards, right?” said Fink.

  “Leo does,” said Bradley. “Just buy the next round.”

  “Ain’t you gonna answer your phone, Bobby?” said Fink.

  “Nah, it’s just a customer.”

  “Another satisfied client of Home Butchers,” said Fink.

  “It’s this bitch from Potomac,” said Bonano. “She doesn’t like the way I hung her cabinets. I’ll show her something that’s hung right.”

  “On account of you’re Italian,” said West.

  “There used to be a natural bridge from the boot to Africa,” said Bonano. “I ever tell you guys that?”

  “Guy’s got a vowel on the end of his name,” said Fink, “he thinks he’s Milton Berle.”

  “Berle was a Jew,” said Bonano. “Like you, Jerry.”

  “His name ends with a vowel.” Fink wiped vodka and tomato juice off his chin. “Uncle Milty was hung like a donkey, that’s all I was sayin.”

  They paused to sing along with the Jimmy Castor tune, light smokes, and sip their drinks.

  Fink looked over at Holiday. “Why so quiet, Doc?”

  “No reason,” said Holiday. “I’m a little self-conscious, is all it is. Listening to you Einsteins, I feel kinda inferior.”

  “Tell us a bedtime story,” said West.

  “I don’t have one.”

  “He’s just solemn,” said Fink, “’cause of all the violent crime we had in the area this weekend.”

  “Yeah, that off-duty police that bought it out in P.G. County,” said Bonano. “You guys read about it?”

  “It was in the Post,” said Fink. “You saw it, didn’t you Doc?”

  Holiday nodded. He had read about Grady Dunne yesterday. The story said that an off-duty MPD cop had been shot to death in P.G. County, along with two other men. One of them was a fairly well-known ex-offender with drug distribution priors. The other man was only identified as a black male. Romero, something like that. Holiday could not remember his name.

  Police were looking for a third suspect who was believed to be the shooter of the police officer. Tellingly, a spokesman gave no explanation for Officer Dunne’s presence at the scene.

  “Either he was undercover or sumshit like that,” said Fink, “or he was involved with those guys, as in, he was as dirty as the doo-doo stains on my drawers. What do you think, Doctor?”

  “I don’t know,” said Holiday.

  “Ward Nine,” said Bonano. “It’s like Tombstone out in that motherfucker.”

  Holiday had also searched for news in the Post about Cook, and had found it in a single paragraph in Metro’s “In Brief.” He was only identified by his name, a man who had been found in a car in New Carrollton and appeared to have died of natural causes. The longer story would come later, whe
n someone in the newsroom figured out who he was: that old detective haunted by the unsolved Palindrome Murders.

  West signaled Leo for a fresh round.

  “You in, Doc?” said Bonano.

  “No,” said Holiday, swallowing the last of his vodka tonic. He dropped a ten on the bar. “I gotta get to work.”

  “On a Sunday?” said Fink.

  “People need rides on Sundays, too,” said Holiday. He gathered his cigarettes and matches and slipped them into his black suit jacket. “Gents.”

  Fink, Bonano, and West watched Holiday walk from Leo’s. They listened to the introduction to “Just a Little Overcome” by the Nightingales and bowed their heads in reverence to the beauty of the song as they waited for Leo to prepare and serve them their drinks.

  A half hour later, Holiday sat behind the wheel of his Town Car on a side street of Good Luck Estates. Beside him were T. C. Cook’s binoculars, a couple of granola bars, and a bottle of water. On the floor was a large empty cup into which he could urinate if needed. In the trunk of the Lincoln were a jimmy bar, a Streamlight Stinger rechargeable steel-cased flashlight, which could double as a weapon, a friction-lock expandable baton, a set of blued handcuffs, duct tape, a hundred-foot retractable tape measure, a digital camera, which he did not know how to use, and other tools and cop tools.

  Several houses away sat the ranch-style, white-sided home of Reginald Wilson. Wilson’s Buick was parked in the driveway.

  Holiday had no particular plan. Wait for Wilson to slip up in some way. Or break into Wilson’s home when he was at work and look for evidence. Toss the shit out of the place until he turned something up. Or plant evidence, if need be. Anything that would open the door to DNA tests that would link Wilson to the murders. Cook had been certain about his guilt, and that was good enough for Holiday.

  He was prepared to sit here all day and, if necessary, the next day. Holiday had phoned Jerome Belton, his sole employee, and told him that he would be taking some time off. Now he had no immediate commitments. No family, no friends to speak of, no woman waiting for him at home. He had this. He’d fucked up damn near everything in his life, but maybe he could get this one thing right. He still had time.