Butchers Hill

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? There 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.

The children had sworn an oath never to tell what had really happened, not to mention guns, or stolen goods. They had assumed lies would keep their little family intact, but Donnie's death had started the inexorable process by which they would be torn apart.

Two years later, Sal had tracked down Pearson and wrangled his scholarship, threatening to expose him. "I was smarter than the others," he had bragged to Tess. "They were dumb motherfuckers." Yet Eldon had done the same thing, convincing the Nelsons to hide him after he jumped bail. They had been glad to do it for a few small favors here and there. And Destiny had been smart enough to try and shake the Nelsons down for money. Or dumb enough, given the outcome.

The Nelsons had strung her along until Eldon could kill her, but they had needed Tess to find Treasure. And when Keisha Moore had started asking questions, Eldon killed her, too. In his own way, Eldon was as much an over-achiever as Sal. He just focused his energy differently.

Tyner finally arrived, Luther Beale in tow. There were some charges pending against Tess-reckless endangerment, destruction of property-although Tull was reasonably sure the criminal charges would be dropped. Eventually.

"Pearson's insurance company isn't going to let you off the hook so easily," Tyler said gloomily. "Insurance companies don't make exceptions, even when you're trying to save someone's life."

"Hey, I did, didn't I?" Tess, who had been contemplating her own role in all the deaths on Butchers Hill, felt momentarily cheered. "I wish that made up for Treasure. Or Keisha. I feel as if I led Eldon straight to them."

"He would have found them one way or another," Tull assured her. Another olive branch. Why not? She had been right, after all.

Beale just stood there silently, holding his Panama hat. He was wearing his brown suit, this time with a blue shirt with a white collar. Tess couldn't help wondering if he had a single shirt that matched his one suit.

"So I didn't do it?" he asked. "I really didn't kill that boy?"

Tull shrugged, not so anxious to mend fences with Beale. "We'll never know, will we? You fired, he fired, Donnie died. It could have been either one of you."

"But a jury wouldn't have convicted Beale if they had known," Tyner pointed out. "We'll get a governor's pardon out of this, maybe even some money. I see a big lawsuit here."

Tull rolled his eyes. "You can't sue the state for pursuing its mandated duties, Tyner. But go for it. Maybe you'll shake a little settlement out of them."

Two officers brought Sal out just then. He was still just a boy, Tess reminded herself. Seventeen wasn't as old as he thought it was. And he hadn't covered up his crime because he feared taking responsibility for what he had done, but because he wanted to keep his "family" together. Perhaps, like everyone else in Baltimore at the time, he had assumed Luther Beale would never serve time for his crime. How could a little boy know the intricacies of handgun laws in the city limits?

"The skinny one," Luther Beale said. "You're the skinny one."

Sal glanced up. He looked angry and guilty at the same time, and not a little frightened.

"Yeah, I remember you, too."

"Well, I have something to say to you," Beale announced. "I have something I want everyone here to hear."

Tull looked at Tess, as if to say: I told you he was a son of a bitch. Even Tess couldn't quite believe that Beale would insist on making a scene. It wasn't enough for him to be proven right. He had to proclaim it.

"The way I see it, a lot of folks failed you," Beale said, the Hermanator scribbling down his words furiously. "Those people you lived with, the man who put you in their home. They didn't teach you right from wrong. But they were grownups and you were a little boy. You couldn't help not knowing any better.

"I was a grownup, too. If I hadn't come out in the street with my gun that night, you wouldn't have fired your gun and Donnie Moore wouldn't have died. Not that night at least. We failed you, all the grownups in your life, we let you down. So all I can say is-" He stopped, playing with the brim of his hat, a gesture Tess remembered from their first meeting. "All I can say is, I'm sorry."