The Night Gardener

'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 trying 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Johnson was a bit shorter than Ramone, with a beefy build and a square head accentuated by an outdated fade, shaved back and sides with a pomaded top.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.

CHAPTER 14

Romed 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.